LAKE CITY — The San Juan Mountains loom white and ripe with an overloaded snowpack above this small town in south-central Colorado. Some 38 feet of snow fell in the San Juans this winter. Most of that snowpack, still nearly 200% more than normal, clings hard to the steep sides of the Continental Divide that […]
snowpack
Posted inOpinion, Opinion Columns
Opinion: Just because it’s been a wet year doesn’t mean we can afford to waste water
After several years of near-record low snowpack and drought, 2019 is shaping up to be a very good water year across the state. Water managers can breathe a collective sigh of relief. But in reality, one good year does not mean we are out of the woods with our water supply. Colorado is experiencing […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Water
Colorado’s drought situation continues to improve, with just 11% of the state under dry conditions
The news just keeps getting better. As the snowpack runoff season begins, Colorado’s drought situation has dramatically improved again. In the past three months, the areas on the drought map marked abnormally dry or worse have shrunk by 88%. On Feb. 12, 92% of the state was under some kind of drought status, including the […]
Posted inEnvironment, News, Outdoors, Wildfire
Colorado’s fire season is expected to rate below average this year. But these days, below average is still hardcore.
Colorado wildfire experts are predicting a slightly-below-average fire season, thanks to high snowpack, decent moisture and lower temperatures forecast throughout the summer and fall. But, to put that in perspective, below-average for Colorado means about 6,000 wildfires and more than 100,000 acres burned. “While we appear to have a little quieter fire season ahead of […]
Posted inColoradans, News, Outdoors
Colorado’s snowpack delivered an epic ski season. Now it’s rafters’ turn — even if they’re a little nervous
Just for a moment, Ellen Southworth allows herself to dream. Maybe Colorado will enjoy a slow, gentle warm-up this summer, with cold nights and without heavy rainstorms, and the rivers will run like a fun water slide all season. But then, over the phone, you can almost see her eyes rolling. “Realistically, we will probably […]
Posted inNews
Colorado, desperate for snow, explores new takes on the old idea of cloud seeding
Cloud-seeding machines strategically positioned in Colorado’s high country have been aimed at the sky for four decades, spewing a compound called silver iodide into the clouds to try to make it snow. Skeptics have been plenty and definitive research was elusive — it’s hard to prove exactly how much more snow falls after clouds are […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Outdoors
A declining number of avalanche deaths in Colorado, the West in the past four seasons buoys hope
They tried to kick blocks of snow from the cornice, hoping a tumbling chunk might trigger an avalanche. “All we were getting were crumbles. We just couldn’t get a big enough block to go,” said Bryan Wickenhauser, a champion ski mountaineering racer from Gunnison. “So yeah, there was some hesitancy. But we were all committed. […]
Posted inColoradans, Environment, News, Water
Drought has revealed for the first time a Colorado town flooded to build a reservoir. And scientists expect to see it again.
CURECANTI NATIONAL RECREATION AREA — It can feel a bit eerie standing on the bottom of Colorado’s largest body of water. Particularly if you are Bob Robbins. Robbins grew up here, although all that’s left of his hometown of Iola, a town west of Gunnison inundated by the waters of Blue Mesa Reservoir in the […]