LAKESIDE — People who live on Flathead Lake or happen to be driving around the east or west shore may have noticed that the lake seems quite full for this time of year.
That’s not just your imagination, as of January 1, the lake is just two-tenths of an inch below full pool.
“Not only did we get the moisture from the rain event itself, but all of the melting that took place, and like I said, that was across the basin, so it was really a spring rain on snow event that we got in December,” Energy Keepers Inc. CEO Brian Lipscomb said.
Watch to learn why Flathead Lake is at full pool to start 2026:
By the end of December, Flathead Lake is normally five feet below full pool. Lipscomb said that’s not the case this winter.
“But I’d bet you have to look long and hard in the record to see where the lakes been full at the end of December,” Lipscomb said.
Lipscomb said strong atmospheric river events rocked the entire Pacific Northwest in December, including in Northwest Montana.
“By the third week of December, I think we had over 350% of normal rainfall in the Flathead basin, and it came mostly as rain; only the very high elevations did we get snow," Lipscomb said.
Energy Keepers Inc. controls the SKQ Dam in Polson.
Lipscomb said they worked closely in a coordinated effort alongside reservoir operators across the northwest to manage flood control by design.
Reservoirs held back water from going downstream and overflowing the Willamette River, which was flooding in the Portland, Oregon and Vancouver, Washington area.
“There was some flooding in some parts of Portland, but because of the way we collectively operated the system, we were able to keep Vancouver and the metropolitan Portland area dry, so the system worked from that perspective,” said Lipscomb.
Lipscomb said storage reservoirs will be drafted for usual spring flood risk management operations in the coming weeks.
He expects lake levels to start dropping rapidly throughout the month of January.
“Of course, that depends on what we get for systems coming in, so if we get some normal weather patterns, like I said, things will drop fairly rapidly, and of course, we target 10 feet from full pool by the middle of April,” said Lipscomb.
