{"id":27417,"date":"2024-05-31T05:00:00","date_gmt":"2024-05-31T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-snowpack-recedes-earlier-than-usual-in-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2024-05-31T11:00:00","modified_gmt":"2024-05-31T11:00:00","slug":"winter-snowpack-recedes-earlier-than-usual-in-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-snowpack-recedes-earlier-than-usual-in-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter snowpack recedes earlier than usual in Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Barely
Barely any snowpack remains Thursday in the La Plata Mountains west of Durango. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Southwest Colorado is left with 6% of its peak snowpack earlier than usual this season in part because of a rare, sudden and large melt in late April.<\/p>\n

Snow that gathers in Colorado\u2019s mountains is a key water source for the state, and a fast, early spring runoff can mean less water for farmers, ranchers, ecosystems and others in late summer. While the snow in northern Colorado is just starting to melt, southern river basins saw their largest, early snowpack drop-off this season, compared to historical data.<\/p>\n

For Ken Curtis, the only reason irrigators in Dolores and Montezuma counties haven\u2019t been short on water for their farms and ranches is because the area\u2019s reservoir, McPhee Reservoir, had water supplies left over from the above-average year in 2023.<\/p>\n

\u201cBecause of the carryover, the impacts aren\u2019t quite that crazy bad,\u201d said Curtis, general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District. \u201cIf we hadn\u2019t had that carryover, it would have been a terrible year.\u201d<\/p>\n

A terrible year like 2021, he added, when many irrigators who depend on water from McPhee received only 10% of their normal water supply.<\/p>\n

The snowpack in the southwestern San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan combined basin peaked at about 18 inches April 2, then plummeted by 8 inches during the last half of April. It was the largest 14-day loss of snowpack before the end of April in this basin since the start of data collection in the 1980s, according to the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University.<\/p>\n

The basin still held onto 1.1 inches of snow-water equivalent, the amount of liquid water in snow, as of Wednesday. Typically, the snowpack is about twice as high in late May, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.<\/p>\n

\"The
The Sneffels Range catch the remaining sun rays of the day on April 16 near Ridgway. (Hugh Carey\/The Colorado Sun)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

\u201cThe Rio Grande and the southwest basins, the snow is pretty much gone, and it\u2019s going to be gone within days to a week at this point,\u201d said Russ Schumacher, the state climatologist and CSU professor.<\/p>\n

The Upper Rio Grande Basin, which spans the central-southern part of the state including the San Luis Valley, had 0.1 inch of snow-water equivalent as of Wednesday, much less than its norm for late May, which is about 1.5 inches.<\/p>\n

Eastern and northern basins, like the South Platte Basin, which includes parts of Denver, have held onto their snowpack for slightly longer than usual. These basins have above-average snowpack for late May, ranging from 119% to 162% of the historic norm, as of Wednesday.<\/p>\n

\"Colorado
Colorado snowpack levels start to fall during spring runoff as of May 29. (Natural Resources Conservation Service, Contributed)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The April decline in the Southwest was caused by warm and dry conditions and sublimation, when snow and ice change into water vapor in the atmosphere without first melting into liquid water. Dust that darkens snow and speeds snowmelt also played a role, Schumacher said.<\/p>\n

The spring runoff is a little faster than usual in the southern basins, but it\u2019s within the realm of normal, said Brian Domonkos, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, which manages snow-measurement stations around the state.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing right now is not something that I would be alarmed about,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Spring snowfall, storms and cooler temperatures have slowed the speed of snowmelt in some areas as well, he said.<\/p>\n

In Durango, the Animas River\u2019s flows were around 2,000 cubic feet per second Wednesday, lower than the late-May norm of 2,990 cfs.<\/p>\n

When it comes to recreation, the lower flows might actually be a boon, said Ashleigh Tucker, who is planning Animas River Days for this weekend. Some races require participants to pass through hanging gates, moving both upstream and downstream through a whitewater park, she said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf the water\u2019s super high, it makes it a lot harder to do. So as far as our events go, it\u2019s a good level,\u201d she said. \u201cBut there\u2019s not much snow left, so that means we won\u2019t really have much left for the rest of the year, which is kind of a bummer.\u201d<\/p>\n

She doesn\u2019t expect the river\u2019s slightly lower flows to impact attendance either: Only years with really low flows, about 1,000 cfs, have discouraged people from floating the Animas, she said.<\/p>\n

Warm and dry conditions are likely to continue through June, then weather watchers will turn their gaze to the sky in July to watch for the monsoons.<\/p>\n

\"Barely
Barely any snowpack remains Thursday in the San Juan Mountains. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

In the meantime, Curtis is watching inflow forecasts for McPhee Reservoir. The runoff has been lower than average so far, even after an average snowpack season, he said.<\/p>\n

That means there might not be as much water left to carry over into 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe monsoons will have the next impact,\u201d he said. \u201cIf you see everyone going on fire restrictions, you know the monsoons haven\u2019t shown up.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Colorado Sun is a reader-supported, nonpartisan news organization dedicated to covering Colorado issues. To learn more, go to coloradosun.com<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Rare, sudden and large melt leaves region with only 6% of peak amount<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27418,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1164,295,294,88,1163],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-27417","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-snow","tag-water","tag-water-supply","tag-weather-news","tag-weather-science"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27417","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=27417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/27418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27417"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=27417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}