<\/p>\n
Southwest Colorado\u2019s snowpack is lingering longer than usual in some spots, but it\u2019s not enough to reverse the dry winter.<\/p>\n
In an updated report on Colorado\u2019s snowpack from the National Resource Conservation Service, the San Juan, San Miguel, Dolores and Animas river basins had shot to a median of 214 percent Wednesday. The moisture is easing drought conditions, but the data may not tell the whole story.<\/p>\n
According to the National Weather Service, even though things are better than average for now, it still wasn\u2019t a great winter.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe numbers can be misleading,\u201d said Matthew Aleksa, a meteorologist with the weather service. \u201cIt\u2019s not like we have a lot of snow up there.\u201d<\/p>\n
Several stations, including at Mancos, Molas Lake and Vallecito, reported no snowpack.<\/p>\n
Aleksa said the actual snow depth for the region this winter was only 67 percent, far below the 30-year average.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re sitting higher than we should be this time of year, but it\u2019s still pretty low overall,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The dry winter\u2019s ripple effect will be seen throughout the Southwest. According to a Bureau of Reclamation forecast, in-flows into Lake Powell will run about 42 percent of average.<\/p>\n
As for Southwestern Colorado, Aleksa said a cold, wet May has prolonged the snowpack a little longer than usual, and recent precipitation, some in the form of snow, has padded the numbers. The peak snowpack came in March.<\/p>\n
Aleksa said a wet summer may be in store.<\/p>\n
\u201cJune, July and August, we\u2019re still going for a big bull\u2019s-eye of above-normal precipitation,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s looking like a wet summer overall.\u201d<\/p>\n
For cattle ranchers, the wet spring means lower demand for hay. Federal agriculture officials expect the price of hay to drop.<\/p>\n
In recent years, hay has been a pricey commodity as drought affected growers and ranchers in the Four Corners and in Texas.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll of those trucks that went with hay from here to Texas, they\u2019re not going to be doing that anymore,\u201d said Dave James of James Ranch in Hermosa.<\/p>\n
Most of Southwest Colorado growers had not even begun cutting hay as of last week. In northeast Colorado, hay contracts were reported at $7.50 per bale for grass and $185 for large squares of premium alfalfa, according to the Colorado Hay Report, a product of the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Agricultural Marketing Service.<\/p>\n
James Ranch sells directly to consumers at the Hermosa property and at the Durango Farmers Market, insulating the business from swings in beef prices. James said his family made a decision about 20 years ago to get out of the commodity market.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was just too big a roller coaster, so we decided to sell direct, and cut out all the middle men,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
James Ranch has plenty of water from the Animas Consolidated Ditch Co. And the grass is growing just fine.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have an abundance of grass because of the rainfall,\u201d James said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May’s precipitation welcome, but may not overcome a dry winter<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":111840,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6363],"tags":[188],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-111839","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ds-news","tag-dolores-star"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111839","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=111839"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/111839\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/111840"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=111839"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=111839"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=111839"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=111839"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}