"Abysmal Snowpack" Conditions In Rocky Mountain States; Even Average Seasonal Totals Likely Out Of Reach

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Hickenlooper, who was also the state’s governor and the mayor of Denver, is not a man given to hyperbole. It really is that dire. Unless a lot of snow falls soon, Colorado’s environment and economy will take a huge hit. Ski resorts are losing money now. In the spring, rivers that usually offer waist-high whitewater rapids and fishing pools will instead be a trickle; in the summer, farmers will lose peach crops. Hydrologists, fire scientists, and climate researchers are bracing for summer too; their spectrum of worry ranges from concern to actual panic.

“It’s as bad as you think it is,” Russ Schumacher, the Colorado state climatologist, told me. On top of the ongoing, decades-long drought in the region, all of Colorado is in a snow drought too. The amount of water stored in the snowpack is the lowest it’s been at this point in winter since at least 1987, when comprehensive measurements began, he said. Going back to older records, some of which date from the Dust Bowl, the 2025–26 water year is the third-worst ever measured. In the two worse years, snowpack measured about 40 to 42 percent of average at this point in winter; this year, Colorado is sitting around 58 percent of median overall, and lower in some areas.

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Schumacher’s predecessor, the longtime state climatologist Nolan Doesken, used to say that Colorado’s snowmelt is well behaved. Rain comes in a flash and is gone just as quickly, but we know where snow falls, where it will lie in wait, and which rivers it will feed months later. Flakes accumulate on cold ground, and when the Rockies stay cold the way they should, the snow remains for many months. And the surrounding air stays colder with snowpack than without it. This winter, temperatures are soaring 10 to 12 degrees above normal in northwestern Colorado—temperatures that region would not be seeing if the ground were covered in snow, Mazurek said.

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That snowpack forms the headwaters of rivers including the Colorado, the Rio Grande, and the Arkansas. And the Colorado River feeds the two largest reservoirs in the United States: Lake Powell and Lake Mead. Both reservoirs are critically low and have been for years: Powell is about 25 percent full, and Mead is at about 34 percent. If Powell’s water level drops another 40 or so feet, which it could this year, there won’t be enough water to generate hydroelectric power at Glen Canyon Dam. Water managers are starting to worry about “dead pool” too, in which the lake will get too low to let water flow through Glen Canyon toward Lake Mead; they are likely to reduce water flow out of Powell this year to avoid it. In most of the Colorado River’s upper basin—in Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, and Wyoming—water is not collected in many reservoirs; instead, it is diverted out to thousands of small locations, from streams to irrigation ditches. And “this year, there just isn’t going to be any water in these rivers. Or there will be water, but instead of 12 weeks or 16 weeks of water, it will be four weeks of water,” (Ed. - Colorado State University Senior Water Scientist Brad) Udall told me. “Under western water law, people can basically completely dry these rivers up.”

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https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/02/colorado-winter/686040/

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/2026/02/colorado-winter/686040/?gift=8cVTHVrAqxLd1rcYkCXLYNdJs7vGKds-QHl7HV2pmJg&utm_source=copy-link&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=share