Spring runoff gets early start
Angling for pike along the shallows of Somers Bay, Greg Strobbe and Bob Sistok wait for bites on their lines Wednesday afternoon. Fishing guide Matt McComb (not visible in photo) offered the men a ride aboard his Mo Fisch charter boat. Sistok said he caught an 18-pound pike along the shoreline Tuesday. Karen Nichols/Daily Inter Lake
The Daily Inter Lake
The spring runoff is under way a bit earlier than typical in Northwest Montana, with lakes and reservoirs starting to refill.
River flow charts for the Flathead River system show spikes that started early this week, a couple of weeks earlier than the start of last year's runoff and ahead of the average start of the runoff season. As of Tuesday, the North Fork and Middle Flathead rivers were flowing at record levels for this time. Those flows have gradually leveled off since then.
But overall, Flathead Lake inflows rose to about 19,000 cubic feet per second this week, well more than the 10,800 cfs outflow at Kerr Dam. The lake rose a foot to reach an elevation of 2,885 early this week, beginning a gradual climb to its full pool elevation of 2,893 by early June.
Meanwhile, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is closely monitoring increasing inflows above Libby Dam. The Corps increased releases at Libby Dam to make room to meet a flood-control elevation target of 2,395 feet by the end of the month. Dam operations could be further adjusted, based on a new inflow forecast expected next week.
Last year, the Corps was caught off guard by a rapid runoff in May, forcing an unplanned and prolonged releases over the dam's spillway, in addition to full capacity releases through the dam's turbines. Those flows contributed to flooding at Bonners Ferry, Idaho.
According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service, snowpack in the Flathead River Basin is at 77 percent of average, and the snowpack in the Kootenai River Basin is at 94 percent of average.