CHEYENNE - John Lawson is hoping this Memorial Day weekend isn't a repeat of the 2008 holiday.

Last year there were 8 inches of rain at Glendo and 6 inches at Guernsey within 48 hours.

The North Platte River pushed into the Glendo Reservoir at high velocity.

"We suddenly got deep into the flood control pool," he said.

Lawson, The Bureau of Reclamation area manager for Wyoming, said he was on the phone at midnight talking with concerned officials downstream in Nebraska and others.

The Guernsey Reservoir, the last Wyoming reservoir on the North Platte, was full and the irrigators didn't need any water with all the rain.

There were a lot of recreationists at Glendo that weekend. Some were stranded when the state park flooded.

Lawson made the comments Tuesday at a meeting of the Climate Issues Committee.

For the months of May, June and July, the outlook is for below normal precipitation and above normal temperatures.

The estimate for the North Platte runoff from Alcova to Glendo for May is 170,000 acre feet, a 139 percent increase over the same month last year.

The estimate for the total inflow for the North Platte system between April and July is 985,000 acre feet. This compares to an average of 1,329,300 acre feet.

"We're saying this is kind of a banner year," Lawson said.

With the exception of 2008, the inflow on the system has not kept up with the outflow since 2001.

The area goes through 10-year cycles, he said, but those cycles are declining.

He noted that the dams built on the North Platte between 1900 and 1950 were based on hydrology.

"They were based on one of the wettest periods we've seen," he said.

Those were the last dams built in Wyoming, other than some Wyoming Water Development Commission projects.

The trend, Lawson said, appears to be earlier runoff of the snowpack.

Contact capital bureau reporter Joan Barron at 307-632-1244 or joan.barron@trib.com.