BAKER CITY — The drought monitor map of Northeast Oregon hasn’t been this boring for a few years.

Mark Ward finds the map quite attractive, plain though it is.

Ward, whose family raises potatoes, peppermint, alfalfa, wheat and other crops in Baker Valley, prefers a version of the map lacking the wide swathes of color that denote various stages of drought.

After the past several years, when the regional map was colorful far more often than not, the current situation, with most of the area in none of the four drought categories, is promising.

“I’m encouraged,” Ward said on Feb. 19. “We’re not out of the drought completely, in my view, but we’re better than we have been.”

Mark Bennett, who with his wife, Patti, runs a cattle ranch near Unity, in southern Baker County, generally agrees with Ward, although Bennett said snowpack in the mountains south of his ranch is sparse.

The overall situation, though, “is certainly an improvement from the drought years,” Bennett said.

Mapping the receding drought

Weekly maps from the U.S. Drought Monitor, a partnership between the National Drought Mitigation Center at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln, the United States Department of Agriculture and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, are one measure of the progress.

In early October 2023, the northern half of Umatilla County was in severe drought on the five-level scale which starts at abnormally dry and has four drought ratings — moderate, severe, extreme and exceptional.

At that time almost all of Morrow County, and most of Union and Wallowa counties, had a moderate drought rating.

The rest of Union and Wallowa counties, and almost all of Grant County, were rated as abnormally dry.

Baker County was an outlier, with almost the whole of the county neither abnormally dry nor in drought.

By mid February the map looked dramatically different.

After a relatively soggy fall and early winter, no part of Umatilla, Morrow or Union counties was in a drought.

Precipitation at the Eastern Oregon Regional Airport in Pendleton was 13% above average from Oct. 1 through Dec. 31, and 64% above average in January.

A swath that extends from western Wallowa County through eastern Union County and part of northeastern Baker County was rated as abnormally dry.

And about the eastern half of Wallowa County, along with the northeastern corner of Baker County, was in moderate drought.

Baker County saw the least change over the past five months, with a majority of the county remaining neither in drought nor abnormally dry.

Drought monitor maps are based on a variety of data, including obvious ones such as precipitation amounts and river and reservoir levels, but also criteria such as air temperature and evaporation levels, soil moisture and vegetation health.

Although the drought monitor is only one measure of conditions, Ward said he generally concurs with the current map’s depiction of Baker Valley as not being even abnormally dry.

“We’re ahead of the game but certainly not out of the woods,” he said.

Ward said that based on what he’s seen in his family’s fields — and below their damp, muddy surfaces — the moisture in the soil profile is “as good as we’ve had in the last six or seven years.”

“That’s a plus, moving forward,” he said.

Since 2020, most of Northeast Oregon has at some time been rated as in severe, extreme or exceptional drought — the three categories at the far end of the spectrum.

Ward said he’s optimistic that weather trends over the past year — a slightly above average snowpack last winter, followed by a damp spring in much of the region, the rare arrival of the remnants of a hurricane in late August that doused Grant, Baker and Wallowa counties in particular, and then widespread moisture last fall — will mark the beginning of period when drought is conspicuous by its rarity.

Todd Nash, chairman of the Wallowa County Board of Commissioners, said that unlike many recent years, he doesn’t expect commissioners will declare a drought emergency this year, a move that can make farmers and ranchers eligible for state and federal aid.

“I think we are in better condition than we’ve been in a while,” Nash said. “If we completely shut off and get no snow, that could change. But at this point in time, I don’t see us declaring an emergency drought. We haven’t had this good of ground moisture in some time,” he said. “This is the first El Niño system we’ve seen in a long time. It’s a different pattern than we’ve seen in a while.”

Snowpack

For much of the region, mountain snowpack is the biggest source of irrigation water for farms and ranches — water that this spring will trickle into streams and replenish reservoirs.

An exception is in parts of the Columbia Basin where dryland farming, which relies solely on precipitation, predominates.

Don Wysocki, a soil scientist with the Oregon State University Extension Service in Umatilla County, said moisture was sufficient last fall to create good conditions for planting wheat and other dryland crops.

As of late February, the snowpack is neither terribly bad nor overwhelmingly good.

Based on records from more than three dozen automated measuring stations around the Blue Mountains, the water content in the snow (a more important statistic than snow depth, since deep but powdery snow contains relatively little water) is about 19% below average.

“Some of your high level (snow) is still looking pretty good and will actually continue to build all the way through mid April,” said Jon Roberts, water management lead for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Walla Walla District.

At most sites the water content now is below what it was a year ago.

But not far below.

At Schneider Meadows, in the southern Wallowa Mountains north of Halfway, in eastern Baker County, the water content on Monday, Feb. 19 was 20.5 inches. That compares to a long-term average for the date of 22.8 inches. A year ago the figure was 21 inches.

In the northern Blues, on High Ridge near Tollgate, the water content Feb. 19 was 15.8 inches, about 15% below the average of 18.6 inches. Last year the snowpack was well above average, at 21.8 inches.

In the Elkhorn Mountains, whose snowmelt feeds the Powder River, the measuring station near Bourne, about 6 miles north of Sumpter, was among the handful with a higher water content this year than last — 13 inches on Feb. 19 compared with 11.6 inches a year ago (which was exactly average for the date).

“Definitely some of our areas are not performing or not building snow as rapidly as they have at other times, and we’re not expecting to get a great influx of water from the snowpack,” Roberts said.

The snowpack has, however, deepened considerably following an abysmal beginning to the season. Water content was at or near record lows throughout much of the region in early and mid December.

“We steadily gained snowpack at an accelerated rate through mid January,” Roberts said. “And then we’ve kind of, I wouldn’t say flatline, but kind of averagely gained snow as we’ve gone through the last part of January, first part of February. It is not great, but there’s definitely still snow up there.”

The thickening snowpack has been reflected in the drought monitor maps.

In late November, when mountain snow was scanty or even absent, all of Umatilla, Morrow, Union and Wallowa counties were rated as either abnormally dry or, in the northern parts of Umatilla, Union and Wallowa counties, as being in moderate drought.

Reservoir levels

With no glaciers in the region, the Northeast Oregon snowpack in effect resets every year.

But the benefits of a bountiful snowpack, and an extended period of wetter-than-average weather, can linger long after the snow has melted and the puddles from a rainstorm have dried.

The reason is reservoirs.

Most in the region are holding more water today than they did a year ago, reflecting the generous precipitation in 2023.

The most dramatic change is at Phillips Reservoir, the impoundment on the Powder River about 17 miles southwest of Baker City. The reservoir, created by the construction of Mason Dam in 1968, supplies irrigation water to more than 30,000 acres, mostly in the Baker Valley.

Ward’s family farms some of those acres, so he scrutinizes the reservoir’s level.

As of Feb. 19, Phillips Reservoir was holding about 29,100 acre-feet of water — about 40% full.

(One acre-foot would cover one acre of flat ground to a depth of one foot. The measurement equates to about 365,000 gallons.)

The current volume is nearly 10 times as much as the reservoir held on the same date in 2023 — 2,974 acre-feet.

Phillips hasn’t held so much water at this time of year since 2018. The volume on Feb. 19, 2022, was 1,848, and for that date in 2021 it was 6,824.

In those years, Ward and other farmers with rights to use water stored in the reservoir were allotted less than 20% of what they would get were the reservoir full or nearly so.

But the combination of last winter’s snowpack, which was slightly above average, and a cold, damp spring that allowed the Baker Valley Irrigation District, which manages the reservoir, to store most of the snowmelt rather than releasing it to irrigate fields, resulted in the reservoir reaching a peak of nearly 54,000 acre-feet in mid June 2023.

That was the highest level since 2017.

Ward said the record-breaking rainstorm on Aug. 21, 2023, when the remnants of Hurricane Hilary swept through Baker County, also helped, as the irrigation district didn’t need to release much water from the reservoir in late summer.

The bottom line is that if as much water flows into Phillips Reservoir this spring as happened in 2023, the reservoir would fill for the first time since 2017.

Ward doesn’t expect that to happen given this winter’s relatively modest snowpack.

“But I think there’s a good chance of being where we were last year, when we had a good amount of water to irrigate with,” he said.

Elsewhere in Northeast Oregon, McKay Reservoir south of Pendleton was holding almost 40,000 acre-feet on Feb. 19 — 56% of capacity. A year ago the reservoir held 32,150 acre-feet.

Two smaller reservoirs — Unity in southern Baker County and Thief Valley in southern Union County — also have higher volumes than a year ago. Both reservoirs usually fill each spring even in years with paltry snowpacks.

Cold Springs Reservoir, east of Hermiston, was holding 14,300 acre-feet on Feb. 19 — 38% of capacity — up from 9,600 acre-feet a year ago.

Athough reservoirs are vital for many farmers and ranchers, not all land can be irrigated with the stored water.

Bennett, whose ranch in southern Baker County is above Unity Reservoir, said that’s one reason he believes drought monitor maps — which use reservoir levels as a criteria — have limited value, at least at a small geographic scale.

Matt Melchiorsen, the district manager for the Wallowa Lake Irrigation District that owns and operates the Wallowa Lake Dam, said the district has been keeping the lake level at an elevation of 4,377 feet.

“We’re keeping it a little high right now in anticipation of a tough year,” Melchiorsen said.

He expects the summer to be “a little tougher than last year,” which was mild.

“All we can do is hope for wet spring,” he said. “That’s about all we can do.”

Looking ahead

Although Ward is optimistic about the 2024 growing season, with a partially replenished reservoir, moist soil and a decent snowpack, he said spring, as always, will tell the tale.

The season can have major effects, Ward said.

The snowpack, for instance, typically peaks from late March through late April, depending on elevation. In the higher ranges, including the Wallowas, Elkhorns and Strawberrys, the water content reaches its yearly maximum some years in early May.

March can be the snowiest month, in part because snow that falls later in the winter tends to have more moisture than the colder mid-winter blizzards that bring the powdery snow that skiers covet but which is less beneficial in bolstering the water content.

At lower elevations, rain during April, May and June is vital, Ward said.

Spring rains have two major effects, both of them positive for farmers and ranchers.

First, the precipitation helps crops get a strong roothold.

Second, the more rain that falls during spring, the less, generally speaking, that irrigation officials need to release from reservoirs.

In effect, Ward said, spring rains benefit farmers and ranchers immediately and, by allowing more water to be stored in reservoirs, months ahead during the hot summer.

But spring can also bring the weather phenomenon that Ward fears.

Wind.

“Wind is a huge factor,” Ward said. “It’s amazing what wind will do to absolutely suck the moisture out of the soil.”

Bennett, too, is cautiously optimistic. The next few months will determine whether 2024, like 2023, is a year when drought isn’t a factor, he said.

“Last year is a prime example,” he said. “I was worried at this time about whether everything was going to dry up, but then we had those spring rains that just didn’t seem to stop. It stayed green in places the entire summer. But you can’t really say in February. It’s just a point in time.”

Spring is also the crucial season for dryland crops, which are not affected by snowpack since they don’t rely on that for irrigation.

Wysocki, the OSU Extension soil scientist, said “everything so far looks favorable.”

But whether that remains the case, he said, depends largely on rainfall amounts from March through around the middle of June.

“If that is average or above average, I would say this is going to be a good year,” Wysocki said.

Spring, on average, is the wettest season in much of Northeast Oregon.

At the Baker City Airport, for instance, May has the highest average rainfall, at 1.43 inches. June is second, at 1.25 inches.

In 2023, total precipitation at the airport from March 1-June 30 was 4.66 inches, about 9% above average.

Precipitation is more evenly distributed throughout the year in the Columbia Basin, and late fall and winter is the wettest period. December is on average the dampest month at the Pendleton Airport, with an average of 1.55 inches, while January is second at 1.49 and November third at 1.44.

Average precipitation at the airport from March 1-June 30 is 4.44 inches.

Grant County’s precipitation patterns are closer to Baker County’s. The wettest month in John Day, as in Baker City, is May, with an average of 1.79 inches. June ranks second, with an average of 1.36 inches. The average total for March 1-June 30 is 5.56 inches.

Comparing 2024 and 2023

Reservoir volume

as of Feb. 19

Phillips (Baker County)

2024: 29,100 acre-feet

2023: 2,974

McKay (Umatilla County)

2024: 40,000

2023: 32,150

Unity (Baker County)

2024: 16,725

2023: 12,400

Thief Valley (Union County)

2024: 13,560

2023: 10,840

Snowpack

(water content in inches)

as of Feb. 19

High Ridge

(near Tollgate)

2024: 15.8 (85% of average)

2023: 21.8

Schneider Meadows (southern Wallowas)

2024: 20.6 (99% of average)

2023: 21.0

Eilertson Meadow

(northwest of Baker City)

2024: 8.3 (97% of average)

2023: 10.0

Taylor Green

(western Wallowas)

2024: 15.3 (99% of average)

2023: 15.5

Moss Springs

(east of Cove)

2024: 15.2 (82% of average)

2023: 17.0

Bourne

(north of Sumpter)

2024: 13.1 (113% of average)

2023: 11.6

Aneroid Lake

(northern Wallowas)

2024: 9.5 (60% of average)

2023: 16.6

“I think we are in better condition than we’ve been in a while.”

— Todd Nash, chairman, Wallowa County Board of Commissioners