Weather may wreak havoc on wheat crops

HELENA -- Montana's lingering drought is expected to stick around for at least the winter, federal forecasters said Thursday.

The drought is expected to persist or get worse for much of Montana and the Rocky Mountain West, along with much of the Southwest through the first part of January, the annual winter forecast from the National Weather Service predicts. A sliver of western Montana, along with the southeastern corner of the state is expected to see the drought lighten.

As for weather, forecasters didn't offer much clarity for Montana. They predicted that the state stands as good a chance for a wet, cold winter as for a dry, warmer one. The state also has an equal chance of having a normal winter.

Jess Aber of the Governor's Drought Advisory Committee said he thinks weather is not the only thing driving the drought in Montana -- the drought is. Because the state has been in a drought for so long, getting a normal amount of moisture this winter and next year wouldn't push the state out of drought.

''We don't get a clean start on Oct. 1 when the water year begins," he said.

Montana's drought has been going on for so long -- four or five years in some places -- that it's comparable to a large loan. Even making regular payments for one year won't pay it off.

''It's a debt we're carrying forward," he said.

The continuing drought over the winter could spell trouble for the state's winter wheat crop, which was one of Montana's agricultural high points last year, said Ron Zellar of the Department of Agriculture.

''It can wreak havoc on winter wheat, and also trees (in town)," Zellar said.

At the end of September, 81 percent of the state's soils were either short or very short on water and 91 percent of the soils below the surface were short or very short, he said. Subsurface moisture refers to the relative wetness of soil under the surface, the soils that planted seeds tap.

Montana's wells are also showing the wear. Tom Patton, a hydrologist and professor at Montana Tech, tracks groundwater in a network of 850 wells across the state. At the beginning of the spring, the water level in 70 percent of them had dropped noticeably. A lingering drought this winter won't help things.

''The system just becomes a little bit more stressed all the time," he said.

Montana has about 200,000 wells, most used for drinking water and other non-agricultural uses. Wells in the deep, low valleys will probably be fine, he said. Wells on higher up on the valley sides, which see groundwater drop first, could go dry.

Groundwater doesn't just feed wells, he said. It also feeds streams and helps carry over streams in the dry months of the late summer when rain and snowmelt are gone.

Aber said streams -- and the fish that live in them -- may be some of the hardest hit during a winter drought. When low streams freeze over, they push fish to the bottom. The lower the stream, the more squeezed fish become. In a worst case scenario, Aber said, low flowing streams can freeze solid, killing everything in them.

The forecast didn't say Montana would necessarily have a dry winter, and, as Zellar pointed out, it could very well be wrong.

''The National Weather Service would be the first to admit that their long-range forecasts are not accurate," he said. ''They have an almost equal chance of being wrong."