{"id":37342,"date":"2022-11-11T10:16:49","date_gmt":"2022-11-11T17:16:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/early-season-snow-off-to-good-start-in-colorados-high-country\/"},"modified":"2022-11-11T17:16:49","modified_gmt":"2022-11-11T17:16:49","slug":"early-season-snow-off-to-good-start-in-colorados-high-country","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/early-season-snow-off-to-good-start-in-colorados-high-country\/","title":{"rendered":"Early-season snow off to good start in Colorado\u2019s high country"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Weather
Weather forecasters are calling for a good shot of moisture this week in Southwest Colorado, with mostly rain in lower elevations like Durango and Cortez, but 5-10 inches of snow above 9,000 feet in elevation in the San Juan Mountains. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Snowpack on the Western Slope is off to a good start, but experts caution it\u2019s difficult to draw many meaningful conclusions from snow-covered, high country peaks this early in the season.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s kind of like leading a football game by a field goal halfway through the first quarter,\u201d Jeff Lukas, an independent climate researcher, wrote in an email.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, the statewide snowpack was 140% of the median from 1991 to 2020, and 142% in the Colorado River headwaters area specifically, according to SNOTEL data compiled by the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The averages were slightly higher elsewhere on the Western Slope.<\/p>\n

Still, there\u2019s a long way to go. Typically, on Nov. 9, Colorado is about 8% of the way to achieving statewide median snowpack, Lukas said. Right now, the state is about 12% of the way there, he said. But, Lukas cautioned that there\u2019s very little correlation between mountain precipitation in October and early November and the final totals across an entire snow season.<\/p>\n

In about a third of the past 35 years, early-season snow totals looked something like they do so far this year, Lukas said. The season-ending snowpack across those 12 years, however, runs the gamut, from a handful of average years to a very good 1995 and a dismal 2012.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, it\u2019s better to have snow on the ground than not, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery little bit helps. Just like a field goal early in the first quarter,\u201d he wrote. \u201cBut it needs to be followed up with a lot more scoring.\u201d<\/p>\n

Given the challenges facing the Colorado River, water managers across the region will be watching the snowpack especially closely this year. More than 40 million people rely on the snow that accumulates high up in the mountains in the Colorado River Basin and then flows into the river and its tributaries. The water is also used to irrigate millions of acres of farmland. However, a series of subpar snow years and dry soil conditions paired with sustained water use has drained the country\u2019s two largest reservoirs \u2013 Lake Powell and Lake Mead \u2013 and strained the entire Colorado River system.<\/p>\n

So far this year, the biggest in-state beneficiary of the early-season snow has been Southwest Colorado and the San Juan Mountains, a region that has been hard-hit by drought and dry soil conditions the past few years. The southwestern part of the state registered 217% of the median snowpack as of Nov. 10.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in the best shape we\u2019ve seen for about five years \u2013 it\u2019s a good start for sure,\u201d said Ken Curtis, general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District, which manages the Dolores Project.<\/p>\n

In addition to the early snow, a steady pattern of monsoonal rains throughout the summer helped Southwest Colorado quite a bit, Curtis said.<\/p>\n

\u201cDepending on how you feel about trends or odds or statistics, we are looking better, and you might say we\u2019re due,\u201d Curtis said.<\/p>\n

In 2021, farmers and ranchers who rely on water from the Dolores Project received a 10% supply. This year, the project operated on a 35% supply.<\/p>\n

Becky Bollinger, the assistant state climatologist, said it\u2019s good to get a head start on snowpack now so that the state is less reliant on big storm after big storm during the heart of the winter.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, seeing these storms kick off and that we\u2019re a little ahead on snowpack is good,\u201d said Bollinger, who is part of Colorado State University\u2019s Colorado Climate Center. \u201cIn general, I feel pretty positive about this.\u201d<\/p>\n

The snow in the high country this week was especially nice, she said, because the next week or so looks like it\u2019s going to be drier across the state. However, temperatures are likely to remain cooler, which is good, Bollinger said. \u201cWhat that means is that while the snowpack isn\u2019t going to accumulate, it\u2019s probably not going to melt in those mid-to-high elevations,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen you have those cold temperatures, that will help support the snowpack that\u2019s already there.\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":"

far, the biggest in-state beneficiary has been Southwest Colorado with 217% of the median snowpack<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":37343,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[120,233,402,28,1309,1164,295,294,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-37342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-colorado","tag-coloradosun-com","tag-drought","tag-headlines","tag-san-juan-mountains","tag-snow","tag-water","tag-water-supply","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37342","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=37342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/37342\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/37343"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=37342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=37342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=37342"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=37342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}