{"id":23707,"date":"2025-02-05T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-05T19:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/will-the-next-six-weeks-turn-around-southwest-colorados-dismal-snowpack\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T22:41:08","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:41:08","slug":"will-the-next-six-weeks-turn-around-southwest-colorados-dismal-snowpack","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/will-the-next-six-weeks-turn-around-southwest-colorados-dismal-snowpack\/","title":{"rendered":"Will the next six weeks turn around Southwest Colorado\u2019s dismal snowpack?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"The
The La Plata Mountains north of Hesperus are sparsely covered in snow at the higher elevations on Tuesday and bare in the lower areas. The basin that includes the La Plata and Mancos rivers has just 52% of its median snowpack. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

When Punxsutawney Phil saw this shadow Sunday<\/a>, the rodential meteorologist predicted six more weeks of winter. Although the groundhog\u2019s long-term weather forecasts have been right only about a third of time<\/a>, his wintry projection would be welcome news to water managers in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s too early to say for certain what the summer water supply will look like. But warm temperatures and the absence of snow at lower elevations in the region have water managers waiting anxiously to see what the next six weeks will hold.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery day that I wake up and I think that I need to put on a T-shirt when I go outside, it\u2019s a little worrisome,\u201d said Ken Beck, superintendent of the Pine River Irrigation District, which manages Vallecito Reservoir. \u201cBut, I\u2019m optimistic that we\u2019re going to be OK.\u201d<\/p>\n

The San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan subbasin, which spans most of the southwest corner of the state, has accumulated 67% of the median water (in snow form) it has typically had over the last 30 years.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Upper San Juan Basin, which contains Vallecito and Navajo Lake, has 62% of the median snow-water equivalent; the Animas basin sits at 76%; the basin containing the Mancos and La Plata rivers has 52% of its median; and the Dolores basin, above McPhee Reservoir, has 74% of its median. (Natural Resources Conservation Service)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The Upper San Juan Basin, which contains Vallecito and Navajo Lake, has 62% of the median snow-water equivalent; the Animas basin sits at 76%; the basin containing the Mancos and La Plata rivers has 52% of its median snow-water equivalent; and the Dolores basin, above McPhee Reservoir, has 74% of its median.<\/p>\n

Although this year\u2019s snow accumulation started off with a series of November storms that brought the 2025 line on the graph above the median snowpack from 1991 to 2020, it dropped below the normal level in mid-December and has lagged since.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s not until early April when water managers begin to take stock of their supply. With about six weeks left until snow accumulation typically peaks in the region, there\u2019s ample opportunity for the snowpack \u2013 a critical natural reservoir \u2013 to grow.<\/p>\n

\u201cNobody knows what the next six weeks are going to bring, and that\u2019s probably really going to make or break us,\u201d said Ken Curtis, the general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District.<\/p>\n

Managers like Beck and Curtis are holding out hope that the faucet will still turn on, and nobody is forecasting water shortages this summer. Yet.<\/p>\n

\"The
The La Plata Mountains north of Hesperus are sparsely covered in snow at the higher elevations on Tuesday and bare in the lower areas. With about six weeks left until the snowpack generally peaks, water managers are anxiously waiting to see what the rest of winter will hold. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

However, that certainly is in the cards if dry weather continues, said Susan Behery, a hydraulic engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation based in Durango who oversees reservoirs in the region. February can bring significant snowfall and help heal an emaciated snowpack, she pointed out.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe would have to have well above-average snowpack,\u201d she said. \u201c\u2026 In February (of 2019), it started snowing and it just kind of didn\u2019t stop. We would have to have something like that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Even last year, when basin snowpack levels were on par with the 30-year median, McPhee received far less than the median amount of water as dry soils held onto moisture and some snow evaporated into vapor, a process called sublimation.<\/p>\n

Curtis warns that if the weather continues like this, there will likely be shortages. At this point, it\u2019s a waiting game.<\/p>\n

However, the news isn\u2019t all doom and gloom. Reservoirs have more water in them now than at this point in many previous years, experts say. Vallecito Reservoir has 80,000 acre-feet of water \u2013 about 20,000 acre-feet more than last year.<\/p>\n

\"This
This year\u2019s snow accumulation started of with a series of November storms that brought the 2025 line on the graph above the median snowpack from 1991 to 2020, but dropped below the normal level in mid-December and has lagged since. (Courtesy of Natural Resources Conservation Service)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Although McPhee\u2019s current level <\/a>is down from last year, it has more water in it now than it did in early February of 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s kind of a buffer against a tougher year,\u201d said Rob Genualdi, the division 7 engineer based in Durango for Colorado\u2019s Division of Water Resources. \u201cSo that\u2019s kind of the good news of it. And then, if things don\u2019t increase for snowpack, the runoff is likely to be quick and then we\u2019ll have to see what monsoons bring us.\u201d<\/p>\n

Still, the next few weeks will be critical.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re not done with winter,\u201d Curtis said, hopefully.<\/p>\n

rschafir@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Reservoir managers hope winter weather will up their supply headed into spring<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22962,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,280,1164,2088,1394,295],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-23707","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-mcphee-reservoir","tag-snow","tag-u-s-bureau-of-reclamation","tag-vallecito-reservoir","tag-water"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23707","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=23707"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23707\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78226,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23707\/revisions\/78226"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22962"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23707"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23707"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23707"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=23707"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}