So much snow

Alexis Barker
NLJ Reporter
 
Anyone who has driven north on U.S. Highway 85 lately knows that quite a bit of snow has fallen in the hills surrounding Newcastle. According to the Black Hills Snow Course Reading completed by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in Sundance, snow totals in areas closest to Newcastle are well above average. 
As of Feb. 1, both Little Bear Run and Mallo Camp have snow totals above the 30-year median, the report says. Both areas have nearly an inch more snow water equivalent in their snow packs than the 30-year median of 2.6 inches and 4.6 inches, respectively. 
Snow water equivalent, or SWE, is a common snowpack measurement for the amount of water contained in the snowpack. It can be thought of as the depth of water that would theoretically result if the snowpack were to melt instantaneously, according to Jason Nehl, a U.S. Department of Agriculture resource specialist in Sundance. 
Current snow depth at Little Bear Run is reported to be 16.6 inches and Mallo has 28.1 inches of now. The SWE for this snow pack is 3.5 inches and 5.6 inches, respectively. 
According to the report, this means that Little Bear Run is 135 percent of the 30-year median in snow water equivalent, while Mallo is at 122 percent. 
Last year, at the same time, Little Bear Run had 2.0 inches of SWE and Mallo had 3.4 inches of SWE. 
Nehl said that this data can be “kind of tricky” when trying to forecast long-term conditions in the area because the Black Hills and surrounding areas are such a low elevation, as far as mountains go, and are much more subject to drastic changes than higher elevations. 
“To clarify a bit, we can have a good snowpack in January or February that looks like it will translate to heavy stream flows in May,” Nehl said. “Then, we can have a warm two-to-three-week period that melts out the majority of the snowpack and we end up with below-average spring runoff.”