Weather service predicts severe drought season

Although Wyoming saw increased precipitation in April, weather, firefighting and emergency response officials are still predicting a severe drought and fire season for 2013.

“We did get a lot of moisture, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t help a whole bunch,” said Carbon County Emergency Coordinator John Zeiger.

Last year’s drought was defined as “exceptional” on a five-level scale the National Weather Service uses to indicate drought. Exceptional is the fifth level on the scale.

The worst drought conditions in 2012 were recorded during the fall and winter, meteorologist for the Wyoming National Weather Service Richard Emanuel said. But the April snowstorms helped off-set the dryness and filled most snowpacks in Wyoming to 80 or 90 percent. The basin-wide snowpack for the Upper North Platte was at 88 percent of the 30-year average on Monday.

The precipitation in April dampened the ground, making drought conditions less severe, Emanuel said.

“There is a continuous drought, but there is some improvement in some areas,” he said.

The moisture took drought conditions from “exceptional” to “severe”, two points higher on the National Weather Service’s drought scale.

“I hope we will continue this positive trend,” Emanuel said.

Carbon County started seeing fires pop up in March in 2012, extremely early for fires, Carbon County Fire Warden John Rutherford said.

Last year, fires consumed more than 48,000 acres in Medicine Bow-Routt National Forests and Thunder Basin National Grasslands across Wyoming and Colorado, according to the U.S. Forest Service.

The extra moisture from April delayed this year’s fire season, but that does not necessarily mean the fire season will be less severe than last year, Zeiger said.

“It doesn’t take long for that moisture to go away,” he said.

Zeiger thinks things can change if the weather remains moist, but is planning for the worst, he added.

“You never know,” Zeiger said. “It depends on what mother nature throws our way.”

Zeiger and other emergency management officials met Thursday to discuss what resources could potentially be used in case of large-scale fires.

“We are anticipating that it won’t be as bad as last year, but it will still be bad,” Rutherford said. Carbon County is implementing fire restrictions that were in place last year, Rutherford said.