The first month of the 2010 water year is done and there is one interesting development in the South Fork Boise River. During October the flows upstream of Anderson Ranch Reservoir were higher than last year (see alternating graph above). The blue line (it’s hard to see) was higher through the month owing to the big storm that blew across the northern Rockies in early October. Trinity Mountain supposedly has 25 inches of snow. So, as that snow melted the meter at Featherville recorded a higher flow than October 2008.
A cooler and wetter October actually helped fill Anderson Ranch Reservoir. The amount it trivial compared to a normal spring run-off of snowpack, but today Anderson Ranch has 268,000 acre feet stored about 5,000 acre feet more than at the beginning of the month.
Usually October is a month where the 300 cfs flows from Anderson Ranch Reseer starts to pull on the storage. This year it was different.
