{"id":1317152,"date":"2019-12-06T15:40:14","date_gmt":"2019-12-06T22:40:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postindependent.com\/?p=991578"},"modified":"2019-12-08T09:21:52","modified_gmt":"2019-12-08T16:21:52","slug":"will-garfield-county-see-another-booming-snow-year","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/local-news\/will-garfield-county-see-another-booming-snow-year\/","title":{"rendered":"Will Garfield County see another booming snow year?"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
A lone snow shoveler works to clear the sidewalk at the intersection of 8th and Grand Avenue in downtown Glenwood Springs, Colo on Thursday morning. <\/strong>
Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

So far, snowpack in the Roaring Fork Valley is average. But does early snowfall mean we\u2019re in store for another wet year?<\/p>\n

After record and near-record snowfall late winter and in the spring of 2019 season boosted reservoirs and lifted spirits, the rest of the year has been on the dry side.<\/p>\n

So far this season, the snow water equivalent has been right at average.<\/p>\n

\u201cAbove Glenwood, we\u2019re tracking right at on average,\u201d said Don Meyer, senior water resources engineer for the Colorado River District in Glenwood Springs.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
snowpack-GPI-120719<\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

Snowpack for the entire upper Colorado River Basin is 110 percent of normal as of Friday, according to the SNOTEL<\/a> automatic sensor network.<\/p>\n

For the Roaring Fork River watershed, the snow water equivalent was 103 percent of normal by Thursday, helped by late November and early December storms.<\/p>\n

The percent of normal figure is compared to a 30-year average snowfall, which means this season so far is tracking with the average snowfall between 1981 and 2010.<\/p>\n

For now, the snowfall is steadily tracking the average. But the future doesn\u2019t look as bright.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re in kind of a neutral el Ni\u00f1o phase,\u201d Meyer said. \u201cThat usually means that the southwest is not going to do as well as if the Pacific temperatures were higher.\u201d<\/p>\n

The long-range weather outlook<\/a> from the National Oceanic Atmospheric Association predicts warmer temperatures and lower precipitation than average in the southwest from February to April 2020.<\/p>\n

While 2019 was helpful in filling local reservoirs, droughts are more regional than local.<\/p>\n

A better indication of total basin health is the status of lakes Powell and Meade, and for a variety of factors, those reservoirs are still struggling.<\/p>\n

\u201cPowell definitely benefited from 2019, but not as much as folks had thought initially. It got really dry in the last half of this year,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

One major factor in the depleted reservoirs is continued overuse in the lower basin, Meyer said. It would take a lot more than one good snowpack year to restore the reservoirs farther downstream.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve heard people talk that it might take five, six, or seven 2019s to get both Powell and Meade up to near full,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

The long-range forecasts, Meyer cautioned, are not guaranteed. The late winter snows of 2019 caught many off guard.<\/p>\n

\u201cLast year was quite a surprise. January was about average, December was kind of dry, then February and March were quite good,\u201d Meyer said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat a difference a couple months make.\u201d<\/p>\n

tphippen@postindependent.com<\/a> <\/em><\/p>\n

via:: Post Independent<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lone snow shoveler works to clear the sidewalk at the intersection of 8th and Grand Avenue in downtown Glenwood Springs, Colo on Thursday morning. Chelsea Self \/ Post Independent So far, snowpack in the Roaring Fork Valley is average. But does early snowfall mean we\u2019re in store for another wet year? After record and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[160],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1317152","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-09-06 10:10:39","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSKE Ski Country","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317152","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1317152"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317152\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1317167,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1317152\/revisions\/1317167"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1317152"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1317152"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kske\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1317152"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}