The Best Winter

They should have given Arizona's weather an Oscar last night!  This winter is truly an award-winning performance.  "Ladies and gentlemen, the winner of The Best Winter is....(pause) ARIZONA!!!!"
Yep, Ol' Airy Zonie strides onto the stages and takes a bow.  The audience gives her a standing ovation.  Tears flow and wails of joy fill the room.  Yea, verily, Arizona finally gets center stage.  How sweet!

I didn't write a water and snow update this weekend because I was waiting for last night's results.  No, NOT the Oscar results--Arizona's latest storm results.  This time the NWS weather wonks nailed it.  They said 6-10 inches of snow and that's pretty much what they got.  Baldy and Baker Butte got more but who's complaining--I'd rather have the Wonks be wrong on the LOW side of their prediction than the high side.

Here's the latest news, hot off the press:  White Horse Lake gained 8ths of an inch of water to sit at 13.4 while its snow is now 40 inches, a gain of seven in the past 24 hours.

Happy Jack's water is at 16.8, a gain of six tenths while its snow is now 51 inches, a gain of five.

Baker Butte was the star of last night's snow show--it's water is now precisely TWO FEET (24 inches) and, get this, it's snowpack is a truly WHOPPING EIGHTY INCHES (80 inches), a gain of 11 overnight.  WOW!

Baker outperformed both Baldy and Maverick Fork over in the White Mountains.  Baldy gained 9ths of an inch of water to sit at 14.9 and picked up 12 inches of snow for a 58 inch deep snowpack.  Remember, it's colder over there so 9ths produces more snow than Baker's 1.2 inch water gain.

Maverick Fork actually has more water than Baldy--17.1 inches on an identical gain of 9ths.  Maverick produced less snow, picking up only 7 inches for a pack of 55 inches.

One sort of odd thing to think about here, folks, is the comparison between Happy Jack and the Twin Stars of the White Mountains.  Happy Jack has MORE water content than Baldy!  The snow looks good but it's the water that really counts during runoff season.  "Show me the water," is the mantra of resource managers.
Well, Happy Jack is ABOVE Baldy.  Imagine that.  WOW.

OK, now let's move on to the streamflow synopsis, shall we?  There's some great water out there, perhaps a little TOO great for some people.  The Verde at Camp Verde is running a knarly 7210 cfs this morning while 9400 cfs is pumping into the reservoir.  WOW!  All of the Verde tribs are alive and well, too.  Believe it or not, the biggest flow is coming from Sycamore Canyon, even though White Horse is holding tight to its 40-inch snowpack.  There's over 1600 cfs at Clarkdale this morning.  That's righteous.  Oak Creek is a thousand, Beaver Creek below the confluence at McGuireville is almost a thousand.  Life is good, Buckaroos!

The Salt isn't anywhere near the Verde today. The day stretch is running 3160 cfs--ho, hum....(HA!)
There's 2650 going into Roosevelt.  The Salt headwaters and tribs don't show anything to make me think the Salt will rise much above these levels.

There are some intriguing flows elsewhere in the region.  The Gila headwaters have really come alive with Redrock, New Mexico flows nearly 1,900 cfs.  Meanwhile, the Little Colorado is finally coming back from a long hibernation.  There's 736 at Woodruff, nearly 400 at Holbrook and 300 in the Chevelon Fork below Wildcat Canyon.  Jack Canyon Creek near Winslow has about 300 and there's 500 at Winslow.  YAHOO!
Grand Falls fans better wax their skateboards and boogie on out there soon.  While Grand Falls will run a lot bigger later, it's such an awesome sight, why not go several times this year?  If enough people go there, maybe it will finally get its own Zip Code.

For you REAL desert rats (people who live in The Old Pueblo AKA: Tucson) you must be dancing in the streets.  Both Tanque Verde and the Rillito have 500 cfs right smack through the middle of the city.  How good is that?  VERY GOOD.

There's such a thing as "too much of a good thing."  Here's an example.  Some of our Dear Friends work for the Forest Service and actually manage the Wild & Scenic Verde River.  They are scheduled to depart this morning from Camp Verde on a five-day river trip down to Sheep Bridge.  Hum, do you think they will really go for it at 7000+ cfs?  I sure hope not.  One mishap in water than high and somebody could die.  I've kayaked the Verde too many times to remember.  Once a partner and I kayaked from Beasley Flats all the way to Horseshoe Dam in a single day.  The flow?  A mere 8,000 cfs.  It was like a bullet ride and there were hazards everywhere.  It was a great flow to make that many miles in a single day but it's not a flow I'd like to have a raft afloat on.  Nope, NO WAY.  You could get swept into a strainer in a heartbeat and no amount of skill or strength could possibly save your arse.  The current speed is simply too high and too pushy.  I once kayaked from Camp Verde to Childs on 45,000 cfs.  It only took a little less than 2 hours.  So, from personal experience, I can tell you there's not a whole lot of difference between 8,000 ad 45,000.  More volume, obviously, a little faster current speed but the end results are essentially the same.  The water's WAAAY too pushy, way too dangerous and people in heavily laden rafts should avoid it.  Empty catarafts?  Well, that's apples to oranges with a five day trip.  Empty cats could navigate 8,000 cfs and have a hoot.  Big barge boats?  Not so much.

Well, that's about all I have this morning.  Congratulations to Ol' Airy Zonie for having The Best Winter.  After all these years of drought, you sure deserve the spotlight.  Enjoy it!  jp