Montana 2023 Snowpack Update - Early

Posted by: Toby Swank

Date: 12/09/2022

Here we are in early December 2022 and all the talk around Bozeman is the snow in the mountains and around town. Piles of snow are stacking up in parking lots around town and the local ski hills already are way ahead of their last year totals! While it can get a bit “old” waking up to day after day of freezing temperatures, a new session with the shovel, and slush ice on all of the locale rivers – it is GREAT to see the white stuff piling up this early in the winter.

The coverage today builds the base for the rest of the winter and the bigger the base, the longer that snow stays in the mountains come next spring. Once spring gets here, we typically lose the low elevation and valley snow pretty quickly – hopefully to groundwater rather than runoff. Eventually, the high elevation snow starts to come out and the rivers swell during the runoff for a 3-4 week period. If we have a great snowpack in the 100-125% of long-term moisture equivalent range, snow will continue to slowly come out of the mountains through mid-July, keeping the rivers full and cool as we head into the hot, dry time of the season – which is why we start looking at snowpack levels as early as December.

As of now, things are shaping up nicely for a 2023 fly-fishing season here in Bozeman, Montana. I am nowhere close to making any grand proclamations today, but I can safely say that I am more optimistic today regarding next year’s water conditions than I have been in many years at this time of the year! I expect to have some great early season Bozeman fly-fishing conditions in March and April 2023 as of now. If thing continue on the current track, I would expect July and August to be as good as I’ve seen in many years!

Watch the Montana Snowpack Here.