Snowpack matching pattern of last year; unknown if La Nina will be as strong
It's far too early to know how the year will turn out, but Chelan PUD commissioners on Tuesday were told that the weather pattern so far this fall and winter is closely matching last year. If the La Nina conditions (wetter and colder) emerge as expected over the next three months (as they did last year strongly), the amount of snowpack should end up closer to average.
Information presented to the Board showed the Northwest River Center forecast for the Columbia River at Grand Coulee Dam (January to July) was at 87 percent of average. The early look for the Lake Chelan Basin was estimated at 111 percent of average.
Janet Jaspers, PUD manager of Energy Planning and Trading, told commissioners that most weather forecasters are still expecting wetter and colder conditions from a somewhat weaker La Nina to last through March and then fade. She said because inflows into Lake Chelan have been lower than expected recently, generating electrical power at the lake has been curtailed, which has meant a rise of a few inches in lake level over the past week or so.
PUD General Manager John Janney said the PUD will be watching conditions carefully, but that the PUD is better protected from the financial impacts of low snowpack because of the staggered advance power sales that have already been carried out through slice contracts and block sales over the next five years. "We're much less dependent on year-to-year snowpack than in the past," he said.
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