TWIN FALLS - For months, water experts have clung to a hope that a string of snow storms and cool weather could ensure a fruitful water year.

Now, those hopes have dried up.

A Natural Resources Con-servation Service report on Idaho's water outlook indicates the situation in southern Idaho couldn't be much worse. Dismal snowpacks, high temperatures and below-normal precipitation means farmers won't enjoy an outstanding water year, as they did last season.

Instead, farmers may have to plant fewer acres or switch crops.

"It's getting pretty late in the year to make those kinds of decisions," said Ron Abramovich, a water supply specialist with NRCS. "Usually we're still accumulating (snow) this time of year, and that's just not happening."

In fact, snowpacks that affect Magic Valley irrigators peaked about a month earlier than normal - on March 1 instead of April 1. And much of the precipitation that fell in the past month was rain that sped snow melting.

Surface water irrigators rely on runoff from mountain snowpacks for much of their irrigation water. This year, storage water will be their crutch.

Lucky for farmers, strong snowpacks last season led to excess runoff that filled storage reservoirs.

Nevertheless, the Twin Falls Canal Co. has said it will offer their irrigators less water than last year, and they may cut back even further later in the season if the storage water gets used up.

Canal company head Vince Alberdi said in a previous interview that his company will tap reservoirs sooner than it would like because of the dismal snowpack.

That puts farmers off on the wrong foot going into next year's season. With little or no storage water to fall back on, farmers will be entirely dependent on snow. And if next year is anything like this one, farmers could be left high and dry.

Contact staff writer Matt Christensen at 735-3243 or matt.christensen@lee.net.