Lake's winter drawdown is wrapping up
(Photo courtesy NRCS IDAHO) Snow telemetry sites monitored by the National Resources Conservation Service indicate snowpack in the northern Panhandle region is 65 percent of average.
OLDTOWN — The annual winter drawdown of Lake Pend Oreille has concluded, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced on Monday.
Albeni Falls Dam operators increased outflow at the Pend Oreille River facility from 12,000 cubic feet per second to 17,000 cfs over a two-hour period on Monday morning.
The lake’s elevation will be kept between 2,051-2,051 1/2 feet to support kokanee spawning.
“This operation is intended to hold the lake within a half-foot of the minimum control elevation of 2051 feet until the Idaho Dept. of Fish and Game have determined that kokanee have ceased spawning,” Alison Pieper, an engineer with Seattle District Hydraulics and Hydrology Branch’s water management section, said in an email update.
The lake’s elevation was at 2,051.22 feet on Monday morning, according to the corps.
Idaho’s snow telemetry network, meanwhile, indicates that the year-to-date precipitation as of Monday was 65 percent of normal in the northern Panhandle region, according to the Natural Resource Conservation Service in Idaho.
The SNOTEL network is composed of automated data collection sites located in remote, high-elevation mountain watersheds in the western U.S. They are used to monitor snowpack, precipitation, temperature, and other climatic conditions. The data collected at SNOTEL sites are transmitted to a central database, called the Water and Climate Information System, where they are used for water supply forecasting, maps and reports.
The National Weather Service in Boise is expecting impacts from this winter’s predicted El Niño will include temperatures that are 53 percent above normal and precipitation that’s 36 percent below normal.
Keith Kinnaird can be reached by email at kkinnaird@bonnercountydailybee.com and follow him on Twitter @KeithDailyBee.