Snowpack totals are down across the entire Columbia-Snake river basin this winter as compared to long-term averages, and as a result so are hopes for a generous water supply this spring and summer for migrating salmon, power generators, irrigators and other users.

Today's "final" monthly water supply forecast from the NOAA National Weather Service's Northwest River Forecast Center says that the most likely runoff volume from January through July as measured at the lower Columbia's The Dalles Dam is expected to be 79.2 million acre feet, or 74 percent of the average annual flow during the 1971-2000 period. The average volume is 107.3 MAF. All of the unused runoff from the upper Columbia and the Snake and their tributaries flow past The Dalles.

Such an outcome would rank the 2010 water supply as the 43th best on a 50-year record dating back to 1961. A dry 2010 also would mean that runoff in 10 of the past 11 years has been below average.

The lowest volume recorded during that 50-year span is 53.29 MAF in 1977.

With a sparse snowpack promising low river flows, the Bonneville Power Administration is projecting a $6 million loss for the fiscal year ending Sept. 30, 2010, according to information posted on the agency's web site. BPA markets power generated in the Columbia-Snake river hydrosystem.

And hydro and fisheries managers are already looking for ways to conserve water for later use.

With the winter half past and the Clearwater River drainage's snowpack still relatively thin, operators of Dworshak Dam in west-central Idaho tested lower outflows through the project's No. 1 unit in hopes of finding a level that would allow a safe, efficient operation of the turbine while helping preserve water in the reservoir. As of this week the reservoir behind Dworshak was 30 feet below the desired flood control maximum elevation.

"That has us very concerned," Steve Hall, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, told the Technical Management Team Wednesday. The Corps operates Dworshak Dam.

For the time being, an outflow of 1,100 cubic feet per second through the unit seems to be working, Hall said.

"Historically we've used 1.3 kcfs" as the lowest flow possible for operating the unit, he said, adding the fact that the reservoir's low elevation may be enabling the lower flow operation.

The TMT, made up of federal, state and tribal fisheries and hydro managers, helps chart day-to-day operations at the basin's federal dams that might best benefit fish, including 13 salmon and steelhead stocks that are listed under the Endangered Species Act. The Dworshak reservoir is an important source of cool water that is tapped, largely on call by the TMT, in late summer to bring down water temperatures in the Snake River for migrating salmon and steelhead.

"We want to maximize the potential for refill," Hall said.

Refill may be difficult. Through Tuesday, the various drainages feeding into the Clearwater and Salmon rivers hold snowpack that has a snow-water equivalence that is 63 percent of normal for that date and is down from 70 percent of average on Jan. 3, according to data retrieved by the Natural Resources Conservation Service from electronic measuring stations across the region. January is normally one of the primary snowpack building months.

And the NWRFC's final forecast predicts that runoff from the North Fork of the Clearwater, which fills the reservoir, will be also be at only 65 percent of the recent 30-year average. A Corps forecast completed Wednesday also pegs North Fork runoff at 65 percent of average.

Elsewhere in the system "we have been operating the projects conservatively" to store as much water as possible, BPA's Tony Norris said.

A warm January cooled the demand for electricity and, as a result, the demand for water to turn the hydro turbines.

"The load has been light," Norris said.

The winter so far is matching predictions that warmer and drier than normal weather might be experienced in the Northwest as a result of "El Nino" conditions that now reign in the equatorial Pacific Ocean.

"There's not a perfect relationship," the NWRFC's Steve King said. Normal winters can result during El Nino years. But the existence of higher than normal sea surface temperatures, as well as other El Nino signals, in the equatorial Pacific do seem to tilt the odds toward warmer, drier Northwest winters.

The result can be the buildup of pressure ridges off the coast that produce a split flow of storms – moisture laden systems that normally pummel the Northwest in winter are diverted to the south and north.

"It's apparent that most of the energy is going south" into California and north "over the top of British Columbia, even skirting British Columbia," the NWRFC's Tom Fero said of weather patterns in recent days and weeks.

"El Nino seems to be settling itself in. I don't see any real change right now," Fero said of various weather forecasts considered in building the early bird water supply forecast.

"In most years February is still a pretty good accumulation month," Fero said. But because of the weather forecasts and unrelenting El Nino signs, the NWRFC made the forecast based on observed precipitation through January and assuming future precipitation would be 60 percent of normal for the month of February, but normal for March and beyond.

"This was one of those years it looked like it warranted it," Fero of the subpar February precipitation forecast.

Not a single one of the 28 subbasins or groupings of subbasins in the Columbia River basin region monitored by the NRCS have a snow-water equivalent even close to average for this point in time.

The highest SWEs in the basin are 85 percent of average through Feb. 3 in the Owyhee-Malheur (southeast Oregon-southwest Idaho-northern Nevada) river basins and Grand Ronde-Powder-Burnt-Imnaha river basins (northeast Oregon). Both areas have largely maintained those averages over the past month.

Also relatively close to average are the Yakima-Ahtanum (81 percent), the Chelan-Entiat-Wenatchee (84 percent) and tributaries upstream of the Methow River that feed into the Columbia in the United States (82 percent), all of which are in central Washington.

At the other end of the spectrum the Bitterroot and the lower Clark Fork River basin in western Montana and the lower Columbia-Hood River (Oregon) region now have only 56 percent of their normal SWE in snowpacks. The Willamette River drainage in western Oregon had only 49 percent of its average SWE through Feb. 3.

Central and southern Idaho snowpacks now are in the 63 to 71 percent of average range.

Likewise, not a single one of the several dozen dots (streamflow measuring stations) on the NWRFC's Columbia Basin forecast map indicates that an average or above average water supply is expected.

The final- forecast for Libby Dam reservoir inflows are 75 percent of average. Libby Dam, in northwestern Montana, is another important source of water for fish operations – Kootenai River white sturgeon in north Idaho and salmon and sturgeon far downstream in the lower Columbia.

The Feb. 5 forecast for Grand Coulee Dam on the mid-Columbia in central Washington is 81 percent of normal. It is fortified, relatively speaking, by anticipated water from British Columbia where forecasts for four locations are in the low 90 percent of average range.

The January-July water supply forecast for the lower Snake River's Lower Granite Dam is 64 percent of average.

El Nino is likely to hold sway for rest of the winter-spring season. Elevated sea surface temperatures in the central and eastern equatorial Pacific developed in June and peaked in December but last month seemed to ease though they remain well within in the El Nino range.

The Southern Oscillation Index, another climate phenomenon believed to signal El Nino/La Nina, also appeared to be trending toward neutral and an end of El Nino but suddenly surged negatively (toward El Nino) in mid-January, Kyle Dittmer told the TMT.

The SOI "all of a sudden deepened back into El Nino territory," said Dittmer, a hydrologist-meteorologist for the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission. That signal is manifested in a weakening of trade winds in the south Pacific.

"I would expect a continued deterioration of the forecast," said Dittmer, who said the region should begin storing as much water as possible for use during the dry summer months.

Among those uses are spinning hydro turbines to produce electricity.

"Without water, the federal hydro system is like a car with a huge engine but no gas," said Michael Milstein, BPA spokesman. "There is still time for the snowpack to build. Twice in the last 10 years, we have had 'miracle March' snows that brought the system back from the brink."

The expected lack of water is the sole reason for the negative revenue forecast, according to the power marketing agency. BPA's expenses are below start-of-year budgets and the price of the electricity it sells on the surplus market is about what was expected.

The agency met with interested parties to discuss its financial forecast at its regular Quarterly Business Review held Tuesday. For more information on the QBR and to see the first Quarter Review, go to http://www.bpa.gov/corporate/Finance/financialOverview

Early bird forecasts issued late each month are the center's best estimate of what next month's final forecast will look like and have available only about half the precipitation reports used in the monthly final. All available snow water equivalent values and observed runoff reports are used.

The NWRFC final forecasts, completed early each month in season, are produced in conjunction with the NRCS and other cooperating agencies. These finals are based on precipitation reports from more than 400 sites. Also included are snow water equivalent and observed runoff values from all available sites in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, western Montana, western Wyoming; northern Nevada and British Columbia.

The forecasts can be found at:

http://www.nwrfc.noaa.gov/