YAKIMA — Washington state farmers are expected to receive a full water supply this irrigation season in the Yakima Basin based on an early assessment, a state water management agency said.
The state Bureau of Reclamation announced that snowpack in the mountains is about 100 percent of normal and basin reservoirs are at 107 percent of normal for this time of year, the Yakima Herald-Republic reported Thursday.
“If we stay relatively normal for the next month, we’ll be in really good shape come April 1,” said Scott Pattee, water supply specialist with the U.S. Department of Agriculture. “We are in better shape than we have been in a while.”
The first water report of the year is released in March, and a more precise one is released in April, meaning the situation could still change, said Chris Lynch, river operations engineer with the reclamation bureau.
Warmer weather without increasing spring precipitation could drastically change the situation, even though the water supply forecast is better than this time last year, he said.
