JACKSON, WY —With the snowfall we saw in February, it’s natural to worry about spring flooding. But so far, Teton County Emergency Manager Rich Ochs says it’s shaping up to be a fairly tame spring.

Of course, that could change pretty quickly. “It all depends,” Ochs said. “We’ve had years with a ton of snowfall and no flooding issues, and years with no snowfall and a ton of flooding.”

So far, temperatures at lower elevation haven’t been rising quickly enough to trigger any alarms. The recipe for flooding, Ochs said, is a rapid two or three-day warmup and/or heavy rainfall. Ground thaw recently has been “nice and slow.”

Rain on top of that would “throw all that out the window,” Ochs said.  There is rain in the forecast this week, but it would have to be pretty heavy to raise big red flags. Still, the National Weather Service says flood will increase Wednesday through Friday due to rain on snowmelt.

The precipitation “could very well be mostly all snow,” NWS reports. But “the possibility for rain over a melting low elevation snowpack certainly increases the potential for flooding of low lying areas Wednesday through Friday of this week. The ground may be still frozen in many locations, so there is a greater chance of overland flow and sheet flooding if snow melt does indeed increases. Low lying areas may become easily inundated with water. Standing water may remain a problem through Friday.”

The next phase Teton County will want to look out for is high elevation runoff. That likely won’t happen in the too-near future, until temps reach the 50s at 8-10 thousand feet for a few days in a row and stay above freezing at night. But when it does happen, it’ll increase runoff into Jackson Lake, the Snake River, and the Gros Ventre.

Ochs said the Gros Ventre drainage is “actually looking a little below average” this year, so he’s not terribly worried. But if the snowpack “decides to come off in two days, all bets are off.” It never hurts to stay vigilant, Ochs said. If you’re worried about flooding, Teton County Emergency Management has sandbags out and ready. They’ll leave them out after hours if flood risk gets serious.

Teton County Emergency Management has a wealth of flood preparation info on their Facebook page. Teton Conservation District also wrote this helpful blog post about flooding. Both agree that this is a great time to talk to your insurance agent.

Homeowner policies generally don’t cover flooding, and flood insurance takes 30 days to take effect. “Also, wildfire season is coming up. Talk about wildfire coverage,” Ochs said. “Thirty minutes will save you a lot of anxiety if something happens.”

Are you familiar with Ready, Set, Go? 

Teton County Emergency Management adopted new evacuation language last year to ensure faster, less complicated evacuations in case of emergency. 

Ready: “Ready” refers to year-round preparedness. Do you have your disaster kit? Is it packed for up to two weeks for your whole family? What’s your family communication plan? Do you know the evacuation routes out of your house and neighborhood?

Set: If TC Emergency Management thinks they might need to evacuate your neighborhood, they’ll put you in “set” stage. This means you could be asked to leave at any moment. Make sure your car’s packed and gassed up, gather up any important personal items, and be ready to go on a moment’s notice. 

Go: “Go” means it’s time to evacuate. Ideally, Emergency Management will have time to send uniformed officers door-to-door to notify everybody, but that can’t always happen. Go means go.Â