Snow hit southwest Montana early and hard this winter. That seemed brutal back in November — but it laid the foundation for a relatively healthy snowpack despite January’s dry spell.
As of Feb. 10, most of the county’s basins were right around normal for this time of the year. The Rocker Peak SNOTEL station, maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, measured 37 inches of snow. Rocker’s snow water equivalent, which reflects how much water the snowpack actually contains, was just above the 20-year median for that site, which sits at an elevation of about 8,000 feet near a saddle north of Basin.
The Frohner Meadow station, located at 6,480 feet at the top of the Lump Gulch drainage northwest of Jefferson City, reported 23 inches of snow, with a snow water equivalent slightly under the 20-year median there. And the Tizer Basin station, located north of Elkhorn Peak at about 6,880 feet, reported 29 inches of snow; its snow water equivalent was exactly at the 20-year median for that day.
