Despite a relatively stormy January across much of the Columbia River basin, the rising snowpack — needed to feed rivers and streams and fill reservoirs — only managed to keep pace with historic averages.
The February “early bird” forecast issued Jan. 30 by the National Weather Service’s Northwest River Forecast Center predicts that runoff from January through July, as measured at The Dalles, will be 102 million acre feet of water or 95 percent of normal.