PORTLAND — Heading into 2021, Oregon’s snowpack and overall precipitation levels are faring much better than they were a year ago, though there is still room for improvement as river basins across the state rebound from drought.

As of Dec. 30, snowpack is 80% of average for the water year that began Oct. 1, and precipitation is 85% of average. That compares to 45% of average snowpack and 49% of average precipitation at the same time last year.

Scott Oviatt, snow survey supervisor for the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service in Portland, said parts of southwest and central Oregon remain in severe to extreme drought, and the coming months will be crucial for replenishing streams and reservoirs.

“We’re very early in the winter,” Oviatt said. “There is still work to be done.”

A pair of winter storms this week are expected to help, dumping as much as 12-15 inches of fresh snow on the Oregon Cascades from Portland to Medford.

Rebecca Muessle, meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Portland, said the storms will bring heavy rain to the Oregon coast and Willamette Valley before turning into snow at around the 4,500 feet of elevation in the Cascades.

The heaviest snowfall is expected in the southern Washington and central Oregon mountains, especially over Santiam and Willamette passes east of Salem and Eugene, Muessle said.

Charles Smith, meteorologist for the Weather Service in Medford, said much-needed snow is also coming to Southern Oregon, with the storms bringing as much as 19-20 inches in some areas.

“Snow is on the way, for sure,” Smith said. “We’ll definitely make up some of the ground we lost in December.”

That is good news for farms that struggled with water shortages and devastating wildfires in 2020. The U.S. Drought Monitor still lists 91% of Oregon in some stage of drought — including 29% in “extreme drought,” mostly centered on the Rogue, Umpqua, Klamath and Upper Deschutes basins.

As a result, Klamath Basin irrigators received just a fraction of their normal water allocation, and Wickiup Reservoir in Central Oregon dropped to just 1% of capacity, a historic low.

Wildfires also burned more than 1.2 million acres statewide in 2020, headlined by a series of wind-whipped blazes after Labor Day that all but wiped several communities off the map.

Oviatt, with the NRCS Snow Survey, said conditions appear to be improving, but noted weather patterns can change quickly.

“Our trend right now is slightly below the historical values, but there’s room for improvement,” he said. “With that in mind, it’s going to take us a little bit of time to get out of (drought), if conditions warrant it.”

NRCS plans to release its first 2021 Water Supply Outlook Report for Oregon this month, including updated streamflow and reservoir forecasts. The reports are issued monthly through June.