The road through the Lamar Valley was dry and tacky last week. Despite some recent snow, most of the landscape within view of the open road was already exposed and parched. Conditions in Yellowstone National Park are expected to be volatile this coming season after a winter with relatively little precipitation — definitely less snow than last year, according to the park’s top climate specialist.

Ann Rodman, Yellowstone National Park’s climate coordinator, arrived at Mammoth Hot Springs for her first position in 1988. She watched about 100 square miles of the east side of the park burn that year; the scars on the landscape are still visible 34 years later. Rodman has been watching the park change and is worried about a repeat of the ’88 season as the world’s first national park continues to be hit with extreme drought.

“The lack of soil moisture and precipitation can set us up for a big fire season,” she said Thursday.

Rodman prefaced the statement by saying Yellowstone’s fire season will all depend on rain events as it moves into warmer months, but if last year is any indication of what is to come, northwest Wyoming could be in for a long, frustrating summer.

“I’m sure everybody’s going to be paying attention as we go into the summer months,” she said, “especially if we continue to have lower than normal precipitation, warmer temperatures and the snowpack melts early.”

Rodman has been accumulating climate jobs for the past three decades. As people retire, she adds duties to her job description. Currently she manages the Geographic Information System for the park, monitors soundscapes and air quality and runs several climate monitoring sites in an attempt to anticipate what kind of impacts the changing climate will have on resources in the park. Rodman also follows weather station and snowpack telemetry reports, looking for long term trends.

What she is seeing is disturbing. Weekly snow water equivalent reports delivered by the National Resources Conservation Service assign percentages above or below normal based on a 30-year median. This year has already seen significantly less moisture than last. 

The NRCS transitioned into a new 30-year median in January — updating the reference period for median and normal calculations from 1981-2010 to 1991-2020 — so percentages involve different parameters from past reports. Current snow water equivalents in the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem are only running between 70-75% of the 30-year median.

But what’s missing from the reports are long-term percentages, Rodman said.

“If we were comparing the normal that they used in the 1971 to 2000 period — comparing the amount of snow we have now to that normal — you’d be at 42%,” she said. “They’ve changed the 30-year period they’re talking about, which can be super confusing when you’re trying to think about climate change and trends, because, you know, every 10 years we change what normal means.”

How a long term drop in precipitation affects the park and the surrounding ecosystems can change environments well into the future.

“There’s no question that climate change is putting us on a trajectory to have conditions that will support more and larger fires,” Rodman said.

It won’t be like this every year: “Some years will be wet, some years will be dry,” she said. But over time, she warned, “it’s not out of the question” that fires like the park suffered in 1988 could potentially happen every decade.

The question Rodman is trying to answer is how species of animals and plants will change along with an extended period of drought. The park may no longer support the same populations or species of wildlife, she said, and even the grasses could change. Fire-ravaged ground is ideal for invasive species like cheatgrass, which isn’t a good food source and dries early in the year, possibly promoting more fires.

“Cheatgrass is really good at taking advantage of that early season moisture and can do it better than some of the native species. And with these earlier seasons, it just kind of sets things up for cheatgrass to do better,” Rodman said.

Something to be aware of for this coming season is the high possibility that streamflows will be very low and the park and surrounding areas may reduce or close fishing, much like last year. Current predictions aren’t rosy.

“I’m sure the park management is going to be looking at that and paying attention as we get into June,” Rodman said.

But as scientists make forecasts, they also are forced to hedge even their best bets. 

“Forecasts of any kind, of course, are not perfect,” NRCS hydrologist Jim Fahey noted in the Wyoming Basin and Water Supply Outlook Report earlier this month.

While the long term trends point to many future hardships, this summer season in the park could surprise scientists and be wet.

“Some of this is going to depend on what kind of rain we get in the next two months,” Rodman said. “We only know what happens.”

The lack of snow and the diminished need to plow will make it easier for Yellowstone crews to open several roads to the public on Friday. Beginning at 8 a.m., select roads in Yellowstone — West Entrance to Old Faithful, Mammoth Hot Springs to Old Faithful (via Norris), Norris to Canyon Village — will open for the summer season; the road from the North Entrance to Mammoth Hot Springs to the Northeast Entrance remains open year-round. The East Entrance and the road from Canyon to Lake Village are set to open May 6, with all roads open by May 27. In announcing the schedule, the National Park Service noted that the plans are “weather permitting.”