The pressure is on: Colorado’s average snowpack statewide masks worrisome water conditions in the south, where water providers are banking on more storms to boost water supplies before snowmelt begins in April.
Much of Colorado’s annual water supply is stored in its winter snowpack, which builds up until early April when it melts and flows into soils, streams and reservoirs. Statewide, Colorado is headed toward that April 8 peak with 92% of its normal snowpack for this time of year. But conditionsvary widely from north to south and within individual river basins, leaving some water experts concerned about drought, wildfires and reservoir levels, officials said during aWater Conditions Monitoring Committee meeting Tuesday.
One of those experts is Pat McDermott, who is based in the Upper Rio Grande River Basin in south-central Colorado, where the snowpack is 69% of the norm from 1991 to 2020…