From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):
Snowpack in the Rio Grande Basin has slipped below normal, Colorado Division of Water Resources Staff Engineer Pat McDermott told water leaders Tuesday afternoon in Alamosa.
“We are well above last year,” he said, “but we have dipped below average.”
He told members of the Rio Grande Roundtable that the basin has not had much snow since February 23 and only had two substantial snowfalls in February.
El Niño is not expected to bring much more moisture this month, he added, but perhaps April and May will be wetter months. He said the forecast for April through June predicts above normal precipitation for this area, near normal precipitation in July and August and a “heat wave” into the fall, followed by a dry spell through the end of the year.
“I hope we get something here soon,” he said.
McDermott said the streamflow forecast has dropped significantly since the last report, with Saguache Creek runoff predicted at 106 percent, Rio Grande near Del Norte at 101 percent , Alamosa River above Terrace at 91 percent, Ute Creek 88 percent; Conejos near Mogote 93 percent and Culebra Creek 87 percent.
As far as the Rio Grande Compact, Colorado is in good standing with its downstream neighbors, having delivered more than required in 2015, McDermott reported. The exact amount of over delivery is still being worked out among the division engineers , he added. That will be part of the agenda for the annual compact meeting , which this year will be hosted by Alamosa on March 31. The Rio Grande Water Conservation District’s new building will be open by then and will host the compact meeting.
Endangered species will also be part of the discussion during the compact meeting, McDermott said.
For example, since the compact storage reservoir at Elephant Butte has seen such low water levels , Southwestern Willow Flycatchers have taken up residence there on the delta, so money is being spent now to find additional habitat where the birds can relocate when the reservoir fills up again.
McDermott said this side of the New Mexico border is providing ample habitat. This area is required to host 25 pairs of the tiny birds and is currently up to 60 pairs.
The fate of the silvery minnow is also a concern along the Rio Grande, McDermott said. He added that Colorado sent more water than it had to downstream to try to keep the minnow afloat, but it has been a struggle in New Mexico to keep the minnow’s habitat from drying up.
“It’s been a tough five years on the Rio Grande for the silvery minnow,” McDermott said.
From CBS Denver (Chris Spears):
In a report released Thursday morning the National Weather Service said that El Niño was in the process of weakening and could be over by early summer.
El Niño is a phenomenon where a warming of the waters in the Equatorial Pacific Ocean can have significant impacts on the global weather pattern…
Mother Nature was very generous to Colorado between November and January with a series of soggy storm systems that brought above average snowfall to both the mountains and the Front Range.
But a dry weather pattern that developed after a heavy snow in early February has prevailed for several weeks, causing mountain snowpack to dwindle and the eastern plains to dry out…
Some of the driest conditions can be found in the Arkansas River Valley east of Pueblo where pre-drought conditions are being experienced.
As of March 1 nearly 9% of Colorado was considered to be “abnormally dry” or in pre-drought. That number jumped to 14% by March 8.
It’s a similar story in the mountains where snow is lagging behind during the most important month for snow accumulation in the central Rockies…
Current long-range forecasts show the possibility of a weather maker by the middle to end of next week.
From The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel (Dennis Webb):
That taste of spring that western Coloradans have enjoyed for the past few weeks has taken a toll on the state’s snowpack.
Blue skies and warm days have contributed to Colorado’s snowpack falling to below normal, at 98 percent of median as of Monday, according to Natural Resources Conservation Service data.
That comes after what had been a strong start for snowfall accumulation in the state in recent months. But a drier midwinter also was expected by forecasters as part of this year’s El Niño weather pattern. And the good news from a snowpack perspective is that the experts also believe the odds are that moister weather lies ahead this month and next based on past El Niño patterns.
“Right now it does look like that we are looking toward a change in (weather) pattern right around the seventh of March,” said Joe Ramey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
He said that in recent weeks, a ridge of high pressure west of Colorado has weakened storms coming in from the Pacific Ocean.
“We just get light snowfall in the mountains, if any,” he said.
That ridge is expected to remain in place this week, which reduced the amount of snowfall expected with the weather system that moved in on Monday. But Ramey said the ridge should then get pushed east, at least for a while, opening the door for more generous snowfall in the mountains by next Monday or so.
“It does look like we’re heading back to a shift toward more winter-like conditions now that everybody’s thinking about, I don’t know, golfing and gardening,” Ramey said.
Painful as a weather change might sound to some, it would provide a welcome boost for the state’s water supplies. Statewide snowpack is down 19 percentage points from 117 percent as of Feb. 2. The Colorado and Gunnison river basins were respectively at 116 and 122 percent of median then, but by Monday both had fallen to exactly 100 percent of median, with the Upper Rio Grande and South Platte basins also at that amount.
The San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan basins dipped to 98 percent of median, the Yampa/White basins are at 93 percent, the North Platte is at 92 percent and the Arkansas is at 99 percent.
Colorado’s winter so far has been doing pretty well at following the script for El Niño winters, a reference to winters with weather dictated by above-normal water temperatures in the eastern equatorial Pacific Ocean. That script called for an above-average start precipitation-wise in the state, followed by a below-average period and then a wet end to the snowfall accumulation season, if a strong El Niño persists long enough, which Ramey said it’s doing.
Ramey said he had expected the dry period to arrive in January, but it showed up a little later.
“We’re still thinking that March and April overall have a tendency to be wet during especially strong El Niños,” he said.
He said the weakened high-pressure ridge next week could even result in snow in the Grand Valley.
“It will be a marked change from what we’ve had in the past few weeks,” he said.
“Since all of us like to drink water and wash our dishes and water our lawns, it has to be a positive aspect for most folks.”
Ramey is uncertain how long the moister trend next week may last, however, pointing to signs that the high-pressure ridge to the west could rebuild beyond March 10 and lead to a drier pattern again.
Erik Knight, a hydrologist with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation’s Western Colorado Area Office, said he’s expecting Blue Mesa Reservoir to fill this year.
“Some of that is based on hoping the storms return in March and April,” Knight said.
He said it has helped that recent problems and maintenance work at power plants downstream from the reservoir led to reduced water releases from the reservoir and let it carry more water through the winter.
As of Feb. 1, reservoir storage across the state was at 110 percent of average. Storage was at 108 percent of average in the Upper Colorado basin and 109 percent in the Gunnison basin.
Knight said that outside of a storm at the start of February, “things have been pretty dry, not a whole lot of extra snow accumulation up there” for the month.
“Now we’re just kind of banking on El Niño producing in March and April, and if it does we’ll be good and if it doesn’t we might struggle to fill the (Blue Mesa) reservoir,” he said.
All of the snowfall in Grand Junction in February came at the start of the month, including 4 inches on Feb. 1 and small amounts on Feb. 4 and 6, Ramey said. The 4.7 inches in total amounted to above-average overall snowfall for Grand Junction for February, he said.
Melanie Mollack, an employee at The Board & Buckle, a ski and bike shop in Grand Junction, said this winter season couldn’t have started off better in terms of snowfall at Powderhorn Mountain Resort.
Now, “it’s spring skiing. There’s still snow up on the mountains and as long as you understand there’s not been anything fresh, there’s still a great time to be had. There’s no bad snow, there’s just a bad attitude,” she said.
She said her store has continued to be busy, particularly on the gear rental side.
“It’s just been all hands on deck, really,” she said.
Looking forward, Mollack chooses to believe that more good snow is on its way, prior to the true spring ski season beginning.
“You have to just say, yes, it’s going to happen, and then it will happen for us,” she said.
However this El Niño winter turns out, Ramey says Coloradans can expect a different kind of winter next winter, with indications that a La Niña weather pattern will occur as water temperatures in the eastern Pacific shift to below-average temperatures.
Whereas El Niños typically result in above-average snowfall in the southern part of the state, La Niñas tilt the odds in favor of higher snowfall north of Interstate 70, which is good news for ski areas in places like Steamboat Springs and Winter Park.
But that’s getting ahead of things, with some pivotal months left in this year’s snowpack season.
“Let’s keep our fingers crossed for a wet spring,” Ramey said.