Good Morning,
Still pondering last night’s STP and it still doesn’t make a lot of sense. Let’s start with the year on year:
One glance tells us 2016 will be the driest year in the last four, or is it? Check out snow pack to refute that conclusion:
Salmon at 154% of normal, Middle Snake the same, Flathead 106%, and the Kootenai a mere 90% of normal. Dry? Not really. How about the official forecast, maybe that can explain the dearth of STP water:
The Dalles at 97%, doesn’t sound that dry, but the clue may be in the week on week as that end of the river station dropped 7%, but why? Nearly every material and relevant station had snow pack builds, some massive builds like the Clark Fork which jumped 15% from 88 to 103. Back to the year on year, let’s examine TDA’s historical water supply:
It’s at parity with WY15 so shouldn’t the projected STP flows reflect a similar value? The answer may be that the NWRFC believes in El Nino and there will be no more builds in the hills, time will tell, but for now we have no choice but to say that this STP is modestly bullish as evidenced by the daily and monthly plots:
The Dec bump can be explained by drafting to meet cold-driven loads but the cuts in Jan-Mar befuddle any attempt at a logical explanation. That cold hasn’t gone away, either:
If anything it has gotten colder and extended its stay a few days adding another bullish hue to Jan. The market seems to agree having rallied up a few dollars yesterday. Even with that rally we think there is more juice left to squeeze and would stay long and take it into BOM.
Mike