It was a dry January across much of Idaho. Has Boise gotten less snow than normal?
After a wet December, much of the greater Boise area and Idaho as a whole have seen weeks of dry weather, leaving less snow than usual in the mountains.
Boise got 4.6 inches of snow in January, which is below the long-term average of 6.9 inches, according to data from the National Weather Service.
Last year was even drier, when Boise got only half an inch of snow in the first month of the year.
In McCall, which usually gets heavy snow in the winter, January’s total was well below average. The resort town measured 21 inches of snow last month, which is about 13.9 inches below normal. In January 2021, McCall got 51 inches.
After wet weather in late December and early January, a high-pressure ridge over much of the West pushed storms farther north, according to a meteorologist at the Weather Service’s Boise office, David Groenert. The high-pressure ridge has also caused a lingering inversion in the Treasure Valley, which has kept temperatures cold in recent weeks.
“Almost like the flip of a switch, we just got into this ridge and the inversion,” Groenert said. “The storm track and activity shifted to the east.”
After starting December with near record-low snowpack, Groenert said the region “caught up to average or above average by early January. And then now it’s kind of flat-lined.”
The exception in the region is in the basin of the Big Wood and Little Wood rivers, which have gotten more snow. In Stanley, north of where the Big Wood begins, the town got 23.6 inches of snow in January, more than the long-term average for the month, which is 17.6.
Scientists say that climate change is having a major impact on snowpack in the Mountain West, which is expected to decline significantly in the coming years.
Already in Idaho, stream flows in the state have seen declines since the late 1940s, which could significantly affect ecosystems and water resource management, according to a study published in the Water Resources Research journal.
Last year was the fourth-warmest on record across the U.S., according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. All of the six warmest years on record have occurred since 2012.
