By Grant Schulte, The Associated Press LINCOLN, Nebraska— Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts announced a $500 million plan Monday to divert water out of Colorado under a 99-year-old compact between the states that allows Nebraska to seize access to Colorado land along the South Platte River and build canals. Ricketts said Nebraska would invoke its rights […]
snowpack
Posted inNews, Outdoors
Recent storms improved Colorado’s meager snowpack. But they also created extreme avalanche risk.
A storm packing up to 3 feet of snow is headed for parts of Colorado this weekend, building on massive amounts of recent snowfall that raised alarms over avalanche risk in the high country even as it helped ease drought concerns. It’s great news for Colorado’s snowpack. But for those wanting to explore the mountains […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Culture, Environment, News, Outdoors, Water
PHOTOS: Short on powder, Colorado’s ski resorts let snowmakers rip
Ski resorts across the country are leaning more heavily on snowmaking guns as warmer, shorter winters threaten a business model based on snow. In Colorado, the reliance on man-made snow has been essential to the start of the 2021-22 ski season, with all of the state’s 13 major river basins reporting precipitation through November well […]
Posted inCartoons, Opinion
Drew Litton: Packing up the precious Colorado snowpack
More cartoons from The Colorado Sun.
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Outdoors, Water
Yes, it hasn’t snowed yet in Denver. But it’s Colorado’s meager snowpack that should worry you.
Snowflakes began falling in Denver on Dec. 1, 1913, and didn’t stop for four days, leaving the city blanketed under 45 inches of snow. Some mountain towns saw even more snowfall, with 86 inches recorded in Georgetown, 53 in Estes Park and about 44 in Boulder. The anniversary of Denver’s biggest blizzard comes amid a […]
Posted inNews
From sky to bedrock, researchers near Crested Butte are resetting what we know about water in the West
CRESTED BUTTE – Eight white shipping containers, instruments spouting from the tops of some and a generator humming away in another, sit in the East River valley, on the outskirts of this mountain town, pulling data out of the air. The containers, a “mobile atmospheric observatory,” will gather bits of information over the next two […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Water
Colorado heads into snowpack season with low reservoirs — but a twinge of hope
Drought conditions have eased up a bit from this time last year, but as the calendar turns on Colorado’s water year, worries about a dry winter still loom, the state’s assistant climatologist says. That’s not to say Colorado isn’t parched. Most of the state remains in drought, including the Eastern Plains, which spent much of […]
Posted inBusiness, Climate, Environment, News, Water
Feds slash state water draws from Colorado River as drought intensifies
The federal government declared a water shortage on the Colorado River for the first time since a compact between seven river basin was inked a century ago, with major 2022 water delivery cutbacks for Arizona and a lesser amount for Nevada and the nation of Mexico. But water resource experts warned Coloradans not to be […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Water
Snowpack in Colorado, across the West is melting earlier than it did in the 20th century
When researchers analyzed decades of snowpack monitoring data across western North America, including many in Colorado, they found that snow at more than a third of the stations melted significantly earlier in the year than it did in the mid- to late-20th century. The new study from the University of Colorado is the first of […]
Posted inClimate, Environment, News, Water
Big March storms helped boost Colorado’s snowpack, but they weren’t enough to solve the long-term drought
Snowstorms last month replenished snowpack in the Colorado mountains and improved drought conditions on the Front Range, as did rain that quenched the parched Eastern Plains. But smaller amounts of precipitation farther south and west have done less to dampen drought conditions. Ultimately, researchers say that one big storm is not enough to break Colorado […]