{"id":2444625,"date":"2019-05-26T14:16:00","date_gmt":"2019-05-26T20:16:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/streamflow-summer-forecast-around-colorado-is-looking-solid\/"},"modified":"2019-05-26T14:16:00","modified_gmt":"2019-05-26T20:16:00","slug":"streamflow-summer-forecast-around-colorado-is-looking-solid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/streamflow-summer-forecast-around-colorado-is-looking-solid\/","title":{"rendered":"Streamflow summer forecast around Colorado is looking solid"},"content":{"rendered":"
Elk Mountain Expeditions rafts after descending Slaughterhouse Falls on May 16.<\/strong>
Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

EAGLE COUNTY \u2014 What a difference a year makes.<\/p>\n

Warm weather and scant snowfall in 2018 put local streamflows at near-record lows by mid-summer. Streamflows this year are also running well below average, but for a very different reason \u2014 cool weather is holding back a lot of snowmelt.<\/p>\n

At the Eagle River Water & Sanitation District\u2019s May 20 State of the River gathering, participants heard a presentation from Karl Wetlaufer, a hydrologist and assistant supervisor with the U.S. Department of Agriculture\u2019s Natural Resources Conservation Service.<\/p>\n

Wetlaufer talked about state and regional snowpack and provided some streamflow forecasts. The news was good on both topics.<\/p>\n

It isn\u2019t just the Eagle River drainage that\u2019s had a good snow year. Across Colorado, the average \u201csnow water equivalent\u201d in the snowpack stands at 186 percent of the 30-year median. After the drought of 2018, that\u2019s fantastic news.<\/p>\n

According to Wetlaufer, Southern Colorado \u2014 the part of the state that most needed a big snow year \u2014 was the area where the snowpack is greatest. The snowpack in the San Juan, Dolores, Animas and San Juan River basins \u2014 closest to the Four Corners area \u2014 stood at 294 percent of the median on May 20.<\/p>\n

Wetlaufer said that runoff so far has added about 200,000 acre feet of water to one of the state\u2019s biggest reservoirs, Blue Mesa, near Gunnison. At the end of 2018, that reservoir was at its lowest level since 1984.<\/p>\n

All the good news across the state is good news to local fishing guides and raft companies.<\/p>\n

Sage Outdoor Adventures has a permit to raft Gore Creek through Vail. That didn\u2019t happen last year. Cole Bangert of Sage said in an average year, the company can run raft trips through Vail for three or four weeks per season, mostly in June.<\/p>\n

Bangert said he expects a longer season this year, due both to abundant snow and a slow melt so far.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019d be stoked to be floating Gore Creek on the Fourth of July,\u201d Bangert said.<\/p>\n

The start of the high water season is good news for rafters and bad news for fishing guides.<\/p>\n

Dave Budniakiewicz, the general manager of Minturn Anglers noted that the May 23 streamflow on the Eagle River at Avon was 600 cubic feet per second. That isn\u2019t much for the last week of May.<\/p>\n

Besides fast-moving water, runoff season also clouds streams with sediment, making it harder for fish to see potential food sources. This year, Budniakiewicz said there will be a few days of fast, murky water, which then clears when the temperatures cool.<\/p>\n

The weather will eventually warm. Runoff will start in earnest and the river will flow fast and muddy. Rafters will rejoice and guides will find clear water outside the river corridors.<\/p>\n

But Budniakiewicz is just happy to have water, and the prospect that this year\u2019s streams will behave as they usually do.<\/p>\n

Vail Daily Business Editor Scott Miller can be reached at smiller@vaildaily.com<\/a> or 970-748-2930.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Elk Mountain Expeditions rafts after descending Slaughterhouse Falls on May 16.Anna Stonehouse\/The Aspen Times EAGLE COUNTY \u2014 What a difference a year makes. Warm weather and scant snowfall in 2018 put local streamflows at near-record lows by mid-summer. Streamflows this year are also running well below average, but for a very different reason \u2014 cool […]<\/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":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-2444625","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-18 19:43:21","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":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2444625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}