The National Weather Service Provides Update on Area Hydrology

Record to near record low snowpack; monitoring updates

By Denise Rivette

The Billings Office of the National Weather Service provided an update on the Hydrology Concerns and Information Heading into 2025. In general, area mountains are seeing record to near record low snowpack and drought conditions are increasing. Of particular note for Carbon County, they will continue enhanced monitoring for the Robertson Draw burn area for flash flooding conditions and a new water gauge will be added in East Rosebud Creek near Roscoe.

The full email is presented below:

Full Email from the Billings Office of the National Weather Service

We hope everyone is enjoying the holiday season! We wanted to touch base on some hydrology concerns and information for the new year.

In this Email:
1) Poor late December mountain snow conditions
2) Drought conditions increasing over the Plains
3) Burn Area Flash Flood concerns for 2025
4) River gauge changes for 2025

Poor late December mountain snow conditions: Area mountains are seeing record to near record low snowpack (SWE - Snow Water Equivalent) for the end of December. A warm and dry westerly flow pattern during the late fall has put area mountains in a deficit for snow water. Most areas are showing SWE deficits of 1 to 3 inches, and areas around Cooke City are showing 5-6 inches below average (Fisher Creek SNOTEL). The good news is the forecast for the next few weeks does bring significant moisture to the mountains, at least for the west facing slopes. We have seen up to an inch of snow water added to the Beartooth mountains so far Today (12/29). It’s still early in the snow season and there is certainly time to catch up. However, this lack of early winter snowpack is something to keep an eye on going through the Winter and into the Spring, for water supply concerns. ( https://nwcc-apps.sc.egov.usda.gov/imap )

Drought conditions increasing over the Plains: With the warm and dry conditions over the last few months, we have seen drought conditions increase over the lower elevations. The latest Drought Monitor (12/25) is showing D3 (Extreme Drought) conditions over Southeast Montana into Sheridan County Wyoming, with the rest of the forecast area at least in the Abnormally Dry (D0) category. January and February are 2 of the 3 driest months of the year, so we do not expect significant improvement in the short term. This means the area will need to rely on above normal precipitation this spring to make up precipitation deficits from the last few months. The latest Season Outlooks show a lean toward above normal precipitation for the next 3 months (January-March), but a lean toward a drier Spring-early Summer period (April-June). Something to keep an eye on for those with agriculture and fire interests.

Click HERE for Drought Monitor

Burn Area Flash Flood concerns for 2025: Two new large burn areas will be added to our enhanced Flash Flood monitoring for 2025 (Remington – S Rosebud/SE Big Horn, Elk – Sheridan). We are already working with Sheridan County officials to increase monitoring equipment on the burn area. We will be taking a look at the area around Busby, Montana shortly to see what concerns there are on the northern end of the Remington burn area.

We plan to remove two areas from the enhanced Flash Flood monitoring for 2025 (American Fork – Park/Sweet Grass, and Richard Spring – Rosebud/Norther Cheyenne Reservation). Over the past year we have not seen indications that enhanced monitoring will be needed going forward. Stream responses in heavier precipitation events along with spotter reports seem to indicate that recovery over the past few years has been enough to mitigate a high-end flood/debris threat for these areas.

So, for 2025, we will continue enhanced monitoring for the Robertson Draw burn area (Carbon County), and will be adding the Elk, and the Montana portion of the Remington burn areas (steeper terrain). We will have more updates and information on this effort heading into the Spring.

River gauge changes for 2025: In late December the USGS discontinued the gauge on Goose Creek at Acme in Sheridan County. Due to USGS funding issues, the Shields River gauge near Livingston, and the gauge on the S Fork of the Musselshell river at Martinsdale, are threatened with closing by next summer if additional funding sources are not located. Please contact Madison May (mmay@usgs.gov) if you have an interest in continuance and/or support of data collection activities at these sites.

The news is not all bad though. The State of Montana has added several new gauges that will come in handy next runoff season.

- Mill Creek near Emigrant (Park County)
- East Rosebud Creek near Roscoe (Carbon County)
- Sweet Grass Creek near Big Timber (Sweet Grass County)
- Pryor Creek near Huntley (Yellowstone County)
- Pumpkin Creek near Miles City (Custer County)
- Box Elder Creek near Ekalaka (Carter County)
- Little Beaver Creek near Webster (Fallon County)
- The State of Wyoming has also added a gauge on Prairie Dog Creek nr Acme (Sheridan County)

All of these gauges are now active and available for use on our website ( https://water.noaa.gov/wfo/byz )

If you have any questions or concerns regarding what has been discussed here, or any other hydro related topics, please do not hesitate to reach out to our office.

Todd Chambers
Senior Forecaster/Hydrology Program Manager
NWS Billings, MT