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Warm days depleting snowpack

Dry conditions in Front Range basin a particular worry

By Jerd Smith, Rocky Mountain News

Published January 22, 2009 at 11:31 a.m.

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The water level at Barr Lake is high and looks fine, but water officials warn that the Front Range, home to millions of people and the state's largest farm economy, is expected to stay dry. The good news is that high country snowpacks are likely to hold steady.

Photo by Dennis Schroeder / The Rocky

The water level at Barr Lake is high and looks fine, but water officials warn that the Front Range, home to millions of people and the state's largest farm economy, is expected to stay dry. The good news is that high country snowpacks are likely to hold steady.

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Colorado's snowpack - a critical indicator of annual water supplies - has weakened in recent weeks, dropping from 120 percent of average Jan. 1 to 108 percent of average this week, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

"We have hit a January thaw," said Mike Gillespie, snow survey supervisor for the NRCS.

The good news, he said, is that projections call for high country snowpacks to hold fairly steady through the winter and spring, meaning that 2009 should deliver adequate water to the state's reservoirs.

"Overall, it should not be too bad a year," Gillespie said.

His comments came at a meeting of the Governor's Water Availability Task Force in Denver.

But the Front Range, home to millions of people and the state's largest farm economy, is projected to stay dry.

Colorado's water arrives each year in the form of high country snow.

And most of the state's eight major river basins are expected to receive adequate moisture by April 1.

But the South Platte Basin, which serves much of the central and northern Front Range is dry now, with snowpack measuring just 94 percent of average. It may suffer more if the remaining winter and spring months are warm and dry, as some forecasts suggest.

"The mountains are looking good," said state Climatologist Nolan Doesken. "But the Front Range wildland interface is really pretty dry."

That's one reason for the grass fires that have dogged Boulder and Larimer counties during the past two weeks.

Alhough most of the state's reservoirs are projected to fill this year, a warm spring will parch home owners' lawns and farm fields.

Forecasters still hope that one or two major snowstorms will help the Front Range, but Doesken said they've become increasingly rare.

"We lived by wet springs in the 1980s and 1990s," he said. "But since then, they've become almost nonexistent."

Comments

  • January 22, 2009

    1:22 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    leavemealone writes:

    Snow pack thins, but still above average....sounds like my hairline.

    LOL

    Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.

    :-)

  • January 22, 2009

    1:34 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    JluvDC writes:

    It has been really warm lately, I hope we get some more snow too. I enjoyed less drought last summer!

  • January 22, 2009

    1:37 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    HankReardon writes:

    ManBearPig?

  • January 22, 2009

    1:41 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Willy writes:

    Too bad we can't hold the snowmelt hostage and solve the Colorado budget crisis by making California, Arizona and Nevada pay.

  • January 22, 2009

    1:52 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Scott writes:

    Willy,

    We could by putting up a dam across the mouth of Glenwood, Black and Gore canyons. I kinda' like that idea, making Kalifornia, AZ and NV pay for the water :-)

    Scott

  • January 22, 2009

    1:55 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    JustSayin writes:

    Once a month, like clockwork, comes these reports about snow in the high country that will fill reservoirs, and the paper prints them like good little lapdogs, and tonight all the local TV news will repeat this exact story verbatim.

    And every month, like clockwork, know-nothing reporters don't ask the question: how are the water levels in the foothills? How are water levels where people rely on wells, or small east slope stream basins with no reservoirs? Has anyone looked around them anywhere below 9000 feet on the east slope? See 'much' snow?

  • January 22, 2009

    2:01 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    Scott writes:

    JustSayin, your 1:55 PM comment, of which I agree with, has just explained the difference between a "reporter" and a "journalist". Reporters regurgitate, journalists investigate/probe.

    Scott

  • January 22, 2009

    6:41 p.m.

    Suggest removal

    jjez writes:

    NOAA/NWS is predicting 8-16 inches in the Vail area of the next few days, with "chance of snow" through Monday. So it'll be back up there before they know it!

  • January 23, 2009

    8:19 a.m.

    Suggest removal

    sunshinestate writes:

    The nation's first newspapers were often referred to as 'paper bullets' due to their pointed reporting....now most have become the "paper target"...