Columbia Basin Snowpack & River Flow 2026

About this episode

This episode features an interview with river hydrologist Amy Burke discussing the Columbia River Basin's snowpack and river flow predictions for 2026.

As rivers in the west fill with spring runoff, we begin a series of episodes with various river hydrologists from four River Forecast Centers across the country. In this episode, we talk with the Northwest River Forecast Center in Oregon to learn about this past winter's precipitation and what flows will emerge this spring and summer. This episode is focused on the Columbia River Basin. Our guest is Amy Burke, a river hydrologist from the NWRFC. She explains the impacts of the Atmospheric Rivers and the March heat dome. Following this episode will be companion episodes for many of the river basins popular with river runners.

People in this episode

Host: Sam Carter

Guest: Amy Burke

Topics covered

• river hydrology
• Columbia River Basin
• spring runoff
• precipitation
• Atmospheric Rivers
• river forecasting

Keywords

• Columbia Basin
• river flow
• snowpack
• hydrologist
• spring runoff
• precipitation
• Atmospheric Rivers
• March heat dome

Mentioned in this episode

Organizations: Northwest River Forecast Center

Places: Columbia River Basin, Oregon

More episodes of The River Radius Podcast

• North Fork Championship 2026 · June 7, 2026 · 1h 8m
• Northeast River Forecast Center 2026 · June 2, 2026 · 34 min
• Southeast River Forecast Center 2026 · May 27, 2026 · 29 min
• Colorado River Basin Snowpack & River Flow 2026 · May 19, 2026 · 43 min
• California & Nevada Snowpack & River Flow 2026 · May 15, 2026 · 32 min
• Colorado State's River & Stream Access Un-Clarity · May 6, 2026 · 56 min