MINOT — The river that so often has citizens on edge about water overflowing its banks may now be foretelling the opposite.
Flows in the Souris River have been so minimal this runoff season that attention is already turning toward the looming possibility of another dry season ahead. The signs are everywhere.
Lake Darling, a Souris River impoundment to the northwest of the city, has risen only a few inches with the snowpack that feeds melting water into the system having already dissipated. What moisture was contained in the snowpack soaked into parched ground with very little entering drainages.
With low water heading into winter, and minimal runoff this spring, Lake Darling’s gates remain closed. No water is being released into the Souris. Normal summer operating level at Lake Darling is 1,597 feet. On Monday, the water level there was under 1,593 and levelling off.
Flow in the Souris at the upper end of the reservoir was recently measured at a mere 400 cubic feet per second and falling. Peak runoff was measured at slightly more than 500 cfs earlier this month, far less than what normally occurs in the spring.
Further upstream the story is similar. At Grant Devine Lake near Alameda, Saskatchewan release gates also remain closed. The water level in that impoundment is 1,838 feet, well below its summer operating level of 1,844 feet with very little runoff anticipated. Grant Devine backs up the water of Moose Mountain Creek which joins the Souris a short distance downstream of the reservoir.
The largest impoundment on the Souris, Rafferty near Estevan, Sask., stood at 1,796 feet Monday with a preferred summer operating level of 1,804 feet.
“The Canada reservoirs remain closed. Their goal is to try and capture as much water as they can,” said Allen Schlag, National Weather Service hydrologist in Bismarck.
The trend of conserving water is likely to continue well into the summer months. The long-range forecast for the Minot region calls for the months of June-July-August to favor above-normal temperatures and below-normal precipitation. The latest runoff outlook issued by the NWS says drought conditions are “most likely to return as the region warms up without some significant help in the form of rain.”
