{"id":2444875,"date":"2019-06-02T08:41:31","date_gmt":"2019-06-02T14:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=307356"},"modified":"2019-06-02T08:41:31","modified_gmt":"2019-06-02T14:41:31","slug":"colorados-melting-snowpack-raises-flood-concerns-with-levels-peaking-at-728-in-san-juans","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/colorados-melting-snowpack-raises-flood-concerns-with-levels-peaking-at-728-in-san-juans\/","title":{"rendered":"Colorado\u2019s melting snowpack raises flood concerns, with levels peaking at 728% in San Juans"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/snowpack-1024x768.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/snowpack.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/snowpack-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2019\/06\/snowpack-768x576.jpg 768w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>The town of Silverton and the San Juan mountains<\/strong><br \/><em>Sean Naylor \/ Vail Daily<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Forecasters are anywhere from concerned to alarmed about the potential for flooding in Colorado\u2019s high country as the water content of the state\u2019s snowpack reaches very high levels, from 324 percent of normal in the South Platte drainage basin above Denver to 728 percent of normal in the San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n<p>The&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nrcs.usda.gov\/wps\/portal\/nrcs\/detail\/or\/snow\/?cid=nrcs142p2_046155\">snow water equivalent<\/a>, or SWE, of snowpack in the mountains peaked at 20.5 inches on April 15, but was still at about 16.5 inches on Thursday, according to the National Weather Service in Boulder.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wouldn\u2019t say go out and get ready for a massive flood, but getting prepared is a good idea,\u201d NWS meteorologist Natalie Sullivan said Friday. \u201cThese levels are definitely something to keep an eye on, but it is not overly alarming.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The SWE of 16.5 inches is more than three times higher than the normal for May 30, which is more typically 4.5 inches to 6 inches, according to the National Weather Service. The variations in normal levels are attributable to different areas of Colorado.<\/p>\n<p>SWE readings are still significantly lower than years when huge floods killed people and destroyed property, including in 1995 when the SWE was 514 percent and 2011 when it was 499 percent in Colorado\u2019s north-central mountains, Sullivan said.<\/p>\n<p>To read more, go to &nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.denverpost.com\/2019\/05\/31\/colorado-snowpack-mountains-flooding\/\">The Denver Post<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/colorados-melting-snowpack-raises-flood-concerns-with-levels-peaking-at-728-in-san-juans\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The town of Silverton and the San Juan mountainsSean Naylor \/ Vail Daily Forecasters are anywhere from concerned to alarmed about the potential for flooding in Colorado\u2019s high country as the water content of the state\u2019s snowpack reaches very high levels, from 324 percent of normal in the South Platte drainage basin above Denver to [&hellip;]<\/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-2444875","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-local-news"},"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-06-19 03:32:37","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&#039;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\/2444875","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=2444875"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2444875\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2444875"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2444875"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2444875"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}