Journal Staff Report

It’s dry out there.

Despite snow cover left by the New Year’s storm, the snowpack in the Dolores River drainage is only 39 percent of normal, according to Vern Harrell, Reclamation engineer for the Dolores Project.

The Natural Resources Conservation Service paints an even grimmer picture, depicting the snowpack in southwestern Colorado at 17 percent of the long-term average, the lowest in the state.

According to Steve Black, state conservationist for the NRCS, most of the San Juan Mountains had yet to receive a major storm by Jan. 1. Data sites in the San Juan, Animas, Dolores and San Miguel basins reported an average snowpack water content of 1.5 inches, while in a typical year they would have accumulated 8.8 inches of water.

Because Colorado relies on the melting snowpack for up to 80 percent of its surface water supplies, a good snowpack is essential to meet demands, but Harrell isn’t worried yet.

"It will change a lot," he said, pointing out that much of southwestern Colorado’s snowfall comes in the spring. "It’s not something to be real excited about at this point. Even with this forecast, we’ll be able to fill the reservoirs."

Harrell said that based on current snowpack, water managers for the Dolores Project forecast the spring runoff to be 64 percent of normal.

Reservoir storage remains higher than average: 116 percent of average in southwestern Colorado. Water impounded in those reservoirs would see agricultural users through at least one dry year. However, the state has experienced its longest wet spell on record, according to water managers, a sign that a sustained drought could be in the offing.

In the northern part of the state, snowpacks were nearly two-thirds of the long-term average, and 15 inches of snow fell along the I-70 corridor Sunday night and Monday morning.

In the Rio Grande drainage, snowpack is 19 percent of normal, and the figure is 32 percent along the Gunnison. The main drainage of the Colorado has just half of its average snowpack.

Readings obtained from 81 automated sites, located at remote, high-elevation locations, indicate that dry conditions have prevailed across most of the high country thus far during the 1999-2000 winter season.