A mix of rain and snow to end April and start May brought a much-needed burst of moisture to Colorado.
The precipitation helped raise both the Roaring Fork River Basin and statewide snowpack totals out of worst-on-record territory. That’s a big improvement from where things stood a month ago, but doesn’t up for the record low-snow winter.
“We could be in a [much] worse position if we had a similar weather pattern that we did in March,” said Erin Walter, hydrologist at the National Weather Service’s Grand Junction office.
A climate change-driven March heatwave shattered temperature records across the West, melting much of the already-low snowpack.
Walter said every bit of precipitation helps make the parched landscape less susceptible to wildfire. And she said the Western Slope has seen a lot of slow, steadier rainfall recently, which is better than the alternative.
“If you have a flashy thunderstorm, then it's kind of an isolated area of heavy rain, and that tends to run off faster,” Walter said. “So it's not replenishing the soils and giving water that maybe our vegetation needs down to the roots.”
But Walter said this isn’t enough to change the overall story of fire concerns.
As of Wednesday, the Roaring Fork Basin was still only at 17% of median snowpack. And the entire basin is still in exceptional drought, the highest category assigned by the U.S. Drought Monitor.
Walter says she’s even less optimistic about the outlook for this summer’s water supply, which depends on snowpack runoff.
“Our snowpack is like our natural reservoir,” Walter said. “We're so dry that anything that hits the ground right now is really just like saturating or helping the dry soils more so than being available for water supply.”
Warm weather is set to return next week, with forecast highs in the 80s in Aspen and into the 90s in Glenwood Springs. Walter said those temperatures are about 20 degrees above normal.
But there is potential for a more robust monsoon season this year, which is tied to the forecast El Niño conditions bringing more tropical storm moisture off the Pacific Ocean.
For now, Walter recommends preparing for the worst.
“Continue to conserve water as if we are going into the worst summer,” Walter said. “If conditions don't improve, we're going to need that resource in the hottest, driest part of the summer.”
