It took only a second to assess the snow situation Tuesday at a snow survey site near Wanoga Sno-Park. There is none.

Rather than take snowpack measurements, Kurt Moffitt, a soil scientist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service, snapped photos of what the site looks like bare.

Normally, 20 to 30 inches of snow blanket the ground at the start of April, holding water and holding back the drying out of vegetation that precedes wildfire season in Central Oregon.

“Without the snow, we will have to see what our spring rain will do,” Moffitt said.

Tuesday’s visit to snow survey sites along Century Drive west of Bend was the third and last of the year for Moffitt and Gabriella Coughlin, another soil scientist with the conservation service. Two of the three sites, the one near Wanoga and another closer to Bend, did not have snow. The third site, near Dutchman Sno-Park, had snow — about 38 percent of normal for this time of year.

Coughlin spent about an hour measuring the depth and weight of snow in 10 spots at the Dutchman site. Moffitt then crunched the numbers to find the average depth and water equivalency.

The survey sites illustrate the snow story for Central Oregon this year: not much snow at middle elevations and some snow up higher.

“We saw that last year, too,” Moffitt said.

Automated snow sites around the Deschutes/Crooked River Basin show the snowpack in dire shape. As of Monday, the snowpack for the entire basin was at 8 percent of normal for this time of year. Typically, the Central Oregon snowpack peaks April 1.

“So here we are, where we should be seeing our maximum snow depths of the year, and we have 43 inches at Dutchman,” Moffitt said. “It’s just kind of concerning.”

The snow survey site, just north of the base of Mount Bachelor, typically has about 115 inches of snow this time of year depending on the density of snow, according to conservation service data.

The depth was not the only thing different near Dutchman due to the light snowfall this winter and spring. The density was different, too.

“It was pretty light,” Coughlin said.

The conservation service uses snow data collected by scientists such as Moffitt and Coughlin to predict stream flows this spring and into summer, when the snow melts. Concerned about the low snow and expected low stream flows, some counties around the state have asked Gov. Kate Brown’s office for emergency drought aid.

The city of Bend uses surface water and groundwater, so the water supply is not directly reliant on rainfall or snowpack, wrote Michael Buettner, water conservation program manager for Bend.

Still, the city does have designated days and hours for when people should be watering around their homes, aimed at conserving water.

“We do not anticipate implementing any additional watering restrictions this year,” he wrote.

— Reporter: 541-617-7812,

ddarling@bendbulletin.com