Good Afternoon,
As most probably already know, the Corps of Engineers released the March Flood Control targets this afternoon.
We aren’t, nor should you, be surprised to see a deeper draft, our surprise is that it wasn’t bigger. The likely explanation is their deployment of the 0 Days QPF, a value of 106, versus the 5 and 10 of 110.
Had either of the latter been deployed the draft would have been deeper, probably into the 1220s. Since the Corps elected to ignore this very significant impending storm in this update, they merely deferred a deeper draft for April, assuming average precip over the coming month.
The RFC will have to bump their April flows since Monday’s STP should not have had any draft. The Coulee targets are 1267 by March 31; they are already below that; 1249.5 by April 15, a relatively easy level to reach; and 1235.5 by April 30. This latter target could become problematic if the Northwest warms up as BPA would find itself in the unenviable position of drafting its runoff (for you old geezers, recall what happened in 2000).
We remain bearish on April and perhaps a bit less so in May given that BPA can now add twenty feet to Coulee in the first two weeks of May, then as much as they like for the remainder of the month. June remains a big question mark that won’t be turned into an exclamation mark until we finish counting degree days between now and end of May.
Cheers,
Mike