When Punxsutawney Phil saw this shadow Sunday, the rodential meteorologist predicted six more weeks of winter. Although the groundhog’s long-term weather forecasts have been right only about a third of time, his wintry projection would be welcome news to water managers in Southwest Colorado.
It’s too early to say for certain what the summer water supply will look like. But warm temperatures and the absence of snow at lower elevations in the region have water managers waiting anxiously to see what the next six weeks will hold.
“Every day that I wake up and I think that I need to put on a T-shirt when I go outside, it’s a little worrisome,” said Ken Beck, superintendent of the Pine River Irrigation District, which manages Vallecito Reservoir. “But, I’m optimistic that we’re going to be OK.”
The San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan subbasin, which spans most of the southwest corner of the state, has accumulated 67% of the median water (in snow form) it has typically had over the last 30 years.
The Upper San Juan Basin, which contains Vallecito and Navajo Lake, has 62% of the median snow-water equivalent; the Animas basin sits at 76%; the basin containing the Mancos and La Plata rivers has 52% of its median snow-water equivalent; and the Dolores basin, above McPhee Reservoir, has 74% of its median.
Although this year’s snow accumulation started off with a series of November storms that brought the 2025 line on the graph above the median snowpack from 1991 to 2020, it dropped below the normal level in mid-December and has lagged since.
It’s not until early April when water managers begin to take stock of their supply. With about six weeks left until snow accumulation typically peaks in the region, there’s ample opportunity for the snowpack – a critical natural reservoir – to grow.
“Nobody knows what the next six weeks are going to bring, and that’s probably really going to make or break us,” said Ken Curtis, the general manager of the Dolores Water Conservancy District.
Managers like Beck and Curtis are holding out hope that the faucet will still turn on, and nobody is forecasting water shortages this summer. Yet.
However, that certainly is in the cards if dry weather continues, said Susan Behery, a hydraulic engineer with the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation based in Durango who oversees reservoirs in the region. February can bring significant snowfall and help heal an emaciated snowpack, she pointed out.
“We would have to have well above-average snowpack,” she said. “… In February (of 2019), it started snowing and it just kind of didn’t stop. We would have to have something like that.”
Even last year, when basin snowpack levels were on par with the 30-year median, McPhee received far less than the median amount of water as dry soils held onto moisture and some snow evaporated into vapor, a process called sublimation.
Curtis warns that if the weather continues like this, there will likely be shortages. At this point, it’s a waiting game.
However, the news isn’t all doom and gloom. Reservoirs have more water in them now than at this point in many previous years, experts say. Vallecito Reservoir has 80,000 acre-feet of water – about 20,000 acre-feet more than last year.
Although McPhee’s current level is down from last year, it has more water in it now than it did in early February of 2019, 2021, 2022 and 2023.
“That’s kind of a buffer against a tougher year,” said Rob Genualdi, the division 7 engineer based in Durango for Colorado’s Division of Water Resources. “So that’s kind of the good news of it. And then, if things don’t increase for snowpack, the runoff is likely to be quick and then we’ll have to see what monsoons bring us.”
Still, the next few weeks will be critical.
“We’re not done with winter,” Curtis said, hopefully.
rschafir@durangoherald.com
