OLYMPIA — Recent rainy weather may have dampened the drought on the North Olympic Peninsula and in the rest of the Northwest, but it hasn’t washed it out.
State Department of Ecology officials say the worst is yet to come.
“The statewide emergency drought declaration was based more on projections of what will occur this summer than on what we have experienced so far,” says Ecology drought coordinator Doug McChesney.
In other words, the damage already was done last winter, one of the warmest and driest on record.
The Peninsula “banks” water in the Olympic Mountains snowpack. It either melted much earlier than usual or never accumulated at all.
That means snow-fed creeks, streams and rivers may be too low for salmon to survive. They also may be unable to dilute pollutants. And their temperatures probably will rise.
Ecology likens the situation to not making house payments for two years, then scraping together on installment and expecting to evade foreclosure.
Real-time measurements
Among real-time measurements of rivers on the North Olympic Peninsula, only the Hoko’s flow near Sekiu is above the median.
Its surplus decreased, however, from 600 cubic feet per second above median on May 29 to 150 cubic feet per second above median on Sunday.
The Elwha River at McDonald Bridge was near median flow May 29, but had fallen about 1,000 cubic feet per second by Sunday.
The Dungeness River near Sequim also was near median a week ago but had fallen more than 300 cubic feet per second below median by Sunday.
The department forecasts warmer but wetter-than-normal conditions; the outlook through September is for normal rainfall, but warmer-than-average temperatures.