Verde water thoughts March 9

As of mid-day March 8, there are a couple of feet of snow at the Happy Jack SNOTEL.  It's the one SNOTEL in the best shape in the entire Verde Watershed.  It's rated at 152% of median.  Supposedly, there are over 9 inches of Snow Water Equivalent in that two feet of snow.

It sounds rather suspicious to me because nothing else in the watershed is that high.  White Horse Lake is 62% of median.  Baker Butte is 43%.  There "might" be a good pocket of snow tucked into the Upper Oak and Beaver Creeks watersheds.  But then again there "might" not.* West Clear is "iffy" at best.

A small storm will pass through late tomorrow, leaving 1-4 inches of snow in the highest parts of the watershed.  It appears this will be dry snow so it won't add much water to the equation

A warm phase is expected by the middle of next week and CBRFC thinks this will bring The Verde River @ The Ladders up to around 400 cfs during daytime hours.  There might be higher peaks at nibght. Right now it's running 280 cfs so the net gain won't be much.  The only interesting aspect of this upcoming rally will be weather it exceeds the small peak registered during the most recent warm spell.

Whatever the weather next week, it doesn't appear very likely to totally wipe out the Happy Jack area snowpack.  That means there "might" be enough snow left up there to react to any kind of a rain-on-snow event.  No such event is currently forecast.

I would think the best place to practice river rescue training would be at Beasley Flat sometime during the latter half of next week.

*We have visited the Happy Jack SNOTEL in person and I don't think it is necessarily indicative of the health of this year's snowpack.  It sits at a site that's more suited for administrative access than for monitoring representative snowpack.  I've always thought Happy Jack is a great indicator SNOTEL if and only if it is in sync with the other SNOTELs.  This year is it NOT in sync so that makes me very suspicious.  It "might" be telling truth and it "might" not.