| 1/8/2009 10:04:00 AM | Email this article • Print this article | Snowpack totals off to good start
Colorado mountain snowpack is off to a good start with much of the state recording above average totals for the New Year.
Latest snow surveys, conducted by the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, show state snowpack at 120 percent of average.
With 2009 totals topping last year's Jan. 1 readings, the current snowpack is the highest since 1997.
In addition, this year's snowpack marks the third time above average January totals were measured across the state in the 12 years since 1997, Allen Green, national resources state conservationist, said.
In the Arkansas River basin the snowpack by Tuesday was 142 percent of average. The number may be skewed because of extremely high averages in the southern part of the basin.
At Fremont Pass in the northern part of the Arkansas River basin, snowpack measured 116 percent of average. Near Independence Pass it was 147 percent of average.
The lowest measurement in the basin was taken at Porphyry Creek near Monarch Pass with 107 percent of average.
Measurements taken at the Apishapa site in the southern Sangre de Cristo range show 227 percent of average.
At Whiskey Creek, near Stonewall, it's 191 percent. At South Colony Creek on the east side of the Sangre de Cristo Range near Westcliffe, it's 134 percent of average.
Green said latest surveys are welcome news to state water users, because as much as 80 percent of Colorado surface water supplies originate from melting snowpack during spring and summer.
The best news comes from river basins across southern Colorado.
A series of heavy storms delivered abundant snowfall to the Rio Grande, Arkansas and San Juan River basins in December.
"We've seen a snowfall pattern strikingly similar to last year in those basins," Green said.
After a dry fall, several intense storms brought heavy accumulations boosting snowpack totals to well above average by the Jan. 1 surveys.
Snowpack readings in those basins range from 135 to 140 percent of average, and are nearly identical to statistics a year ago, Green said.
The 140 percent of average in the Rio Grande basin is the highest January total since 1985, bringing the best news to water users in that basin in decades.
Meanwhile, snowpack totals across northern Colorado remain near average to slightly below average for this time of year.
With December storm patterns favoring southern Colorado, northern basins received smaller totals, ranging from 86 to 99 percent of average in the Yampa, White, and North and South Platte basins.
Although those basins remain slightly below average, only the North Platte is short of exceeding last year's totals for this date.
"Overall, the state is on track to experience another good runoff year when spring arrives," Green said.
Streamflow forecasts for spring and summer call for near average to above average runoff throughout much of Colorado.
"We still have 60 percent of the snowpack accumulation season ahead of us. There's a lot that can happen in the next few months to can change the picture, but now, things look great," Green said.
As the New Year begins, reservoir storage is statewide. With no basins showing potential shortages, statewide totals are at 98 percent of average and are 101 percent of last year's storage volumes.
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