Colorado’s winter-to-spring shift is leaving water planners, ranchers and cities bracing for a tougher summer after hydrologist Maureen Gutsch confirmed that the state’s mountain snowpack is the lowest on record. Gutsch, who works with the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, described walking through slush and mud to verify the statewide tally as measuring teams documented the early melt and thin accumulation.
Gutsch said the mountain snow accumulations peaked a month early and contained about half the average moisture. She linked the loss of snow cover to a warm winter followed by early springtime heat, saying snow is vanishing from all but the highest elevations across much of the West.
The early disappearance of snow is reshaping day-to-day decisions for ranchers closest to the runoff cycle. In Colorado’s North Park valley, Philip Anderson said he has not seen a season like this in his long ranching experience, and he said his cows are grazing grass before it can grow high and that several ponds are dry. Anderson also said the ditch that normally helps move water from the nearby Illinois River to his property was already dry, with neighbors using it first under more senior water rights.
North Park, about 100 miles from the South Park valley that inspired the cartoon TV show, is a headwaters area for the eastward-flowing Platte River system. Across the Continental Divide, Jo Stanko’s ranch on the Yampa River faces different physical effects from low flows, including a river shallow enough for cattle to wade across. She said this year she is watering her parched meadow earlier than ever in 50 years of ranching, and she plans to cut hay before June and may buy hay to feed her herd of 70 cows.
As snowpack shrinks, water managers also face tightening policy timelines and political negotiations over how to allocate shortages. Upper Basin states including Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming remain at an impasse in negotiations with Lower Basin states—Arizona, California and Nevada—over how to manage shortages, with current rules expiring in September.
Within those talks, Colorado River negotiator Becky Mitchell said upper basin states use less when there is less and that the approach is not voluntary. Mitchell said Colorado and other upper basin states honor senior water rights—some dating to the 1880s—before newer rights during droughts, and she said that as deadlines set by federal officials have been missed, the two sides are hiring lawyers in case the dispute goes to court.
Cities in the region have begun adjusting water use. Salt Lake City announced a 10% daily cut in water use after what it described as the driest and warmest winter on record, with the biggest nonresidential users limited to no more than 200,000 gallons (2.6 million liters) per day, while household reductions would be voluntary. Denver Water, which said precipitation west of the Continental Divide feeds about half of the city’s water through tunnels, announced measures aimed at saving about 20%, including limits on lawn watering.
Nathan Elder, the water supply manager for Denver Water, said Denver is 7 to 8 feet (2 to 2.4 meters) of snow short of where it needs to be and said it would take a tremendous amount of snow to recover at this point. Elder said it was time to turn attention to preserving what the city has, as hot and dry conditions persist.
Forecasters say the same combination of above-average temperatures and below-normal precipitation that shortens the snow season can also increase wildfire risk. The region received a brief reprieve with snow returning to the forecast in North Park, but Anderson said drought conditions are still severe and that he needs more rain—about half an inch (1 centimeter) every other day for several days—to improve prospects. He urged water users to coordinate and communicate, saying, “It’s pretty serious,” and that cooperating may help communities “make it through this.”