April 1 is an important date for water management in the Western United States. It typically marks the point at which snowpack has peaked for the year, meaning that water managers and users have a pretty good idea of what will be available come spring.
However, as April approaches, snowpack is at record lows in much of the Rocky Mountains. Across the entire Upper Colorado River Basin, the snow-water equivalent, or the amount of water stored in snowpack, is 62% of normal for this time of year. Utah and Colorado are both seeing their lowest snowpacks on record, at 57% snow-water equivalent and 59% snow-water equivalent, respectively.
“A feature of this winter that we will see increasingly more and more of are these really warm temperatures during winter, and some of our snow drought really being attributed to warm temperatures rather than lack of precipitation,” said Seth Arens, a hydrologist with the Western Water Assessment.
He noted that this year we’re seeing both a lack of precipitation in some regions and these warmer temperatures but “that lack of precipitation is magnified when looking at snowpack because a lot of the precipitation, especially below 8,000 feet, has fallen as rain this winter.”
Arens said typically, snow would begin melting in mid-April, but it’s already started to happen in much of the basin, thanks to warmer temperatures. But because it’s so early in the year, the sun’s intensity is lower than later in spring, and so we’re seeing the start of a very slow melt.
“You really want that melt to go as fast as possible, to have a short melt period that melts off rapid,” he explained. “That's the scenario that gets the most water into streams.”
Even though the prolonged, early melt is bad news for spring runoff, forecasters say throughout much of the basin, there will likely be an efficient runoff, meaning that most of the water in the snow will actually make it into rivers and streams. For example, in an efficient year, if snowpack is 50% of average, ensuing runoff will be about 50% of average.
Arens said that rains in the southern part of the basin last fall helped with soil moisture.
“That's a good thing that the soils are wet,” he said. “So the meager snowpack that we do have on the ground, a higher proportion of that will make it into the streams than… over the past five, six years where it's been really dry going into the snow pack season.”
Arens said there’s not as much data for snow cover as there is for snow pack, but based on the historical satellite data we do have, the total area in the region covered in snow is the lowest it’s been in years, particularly at low to mid elevations, between 4,000-7,000 feet.
He said that ends up creating a negative feedback loop.
“If you're getting less snow and there's less snow on the ground, that actually increases temperatures because there's not this broad area of snow cover, which reflects sunlight back to space and keeps the ground surface cooler,” he explained.
Poor runoff spells uncertain future for Lake Powell
The dismal snowpack has translated to dire forecasts for the largest reservoir in the Upper Colorado River Basin.
“The runoff forecast for Lake Powell, so this is essentially all the entirety of the Upper Colorado Basin, is 36% of average,” Arens said.
That number comes from the Bureau of Reclamation, which oversees Lake Powell and owns the Glen Canyon Dam. In its 24-month outlook, the agency releases three scenarios for the reservoir’s elevation: probable maximum (highest water levels and inflows), most probable, and probable minimum (lowest water levels and inflows).
“Over the past several years, those minimum probable forecasts have been much closer to accurate than the most probable forecast,” Arens said.
In Reclamation’s most probable scenario, Lake Powell could drop to minimum power pool by December of this year, and in the worst-case scenario, it would hit minimum power pool by August.
Minimum power pool is the lowest water level at which Glen Canyon Dam can produce hydropower, and dropping below that could damage infrastructure.
Though it has not yet announced any emergency procedures, or any actions under its Drought Response Operations Agreement, in 2021 and 2022, Reclamation released water from Upper Basin reservoirs to supplement drastically low levels in Lake Powell.
“I expect that to happen again this year because the added problem this year is that we're even lower than we were in 2022 and 2023 right now, and we have virtually no runoff coming down the Colorado River,” Arens said.
In 2021 and 2022, releases came from several regional reservoirs, including Flaming Gorge on the Utah/Wyoming state line, and Blue Mesa in Gunnison County, Colorado.
Navajo Lake in Northern New Mexico has also been identified for possible release of water for Powell in times of shortage.
Arens said the situation is different this year.
“Navajo and Blue Mesa are significantly lower than they were a couple years ago,” he said.
When asked about potential releases to supplement Powell, the Bureau of Reclamation said they would have more information towards the end of the month.
Copyright 2026 Rocky Mountain Community Radio. This story was shared via Rocky Mountain Community Radio, a network of public media stations in Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, and New Mexico, including Aspen Public Radio.
