State climatologists and hydrologists are concerned looking ahead to next spring.
As the soil begins to freeze, it’s saturated in many parts of the state.
Laura Edwards is the state climatologist with SDSU. She says even with average snowfall, the soil has little to no capacity to take up extra moisture.
“That moisture essentially locks in there, it freezes in the soil,” Edwards says. “You don’t lose it until the soils thaw again in the spring. You don’t have any capacity in the soil to take up the moisture that you might get from rain or snow melt runoff in the spring, until the soils thaw out.
Edwards says the state will see runoff as soon as snow starts to melt.
She says long term predictions call for cooler to average temperatures and plenty of moisture over the winter and into next spring - the same as earlier this year.