Normally come mid-July, look west, and you’ll see the Rocky Mountains’ brown-colored outline.
This year, Colorado’s huge winter still has clearly visible frosted tips on top of those mighty Rockies.
As of Wednesday, Colorado still officially had snowpack on the ground, according to the daily National Resources Conservation Service snow survey.
While Colorado only officially had 0.2 inches of snow statewide as of Wednesday’s report — meaning the remainder of Colorado’s snowpack will probably melt off within the next few days — it’s the latest that Colorado’s had any snow on the ground in nearly a decade. The last time Colorado had any measurable snow on the ground on July 10 was back in 2011, and it’s only the second time Colorado’s had snow on the ground this late into the summer since 1997.
The remaining snowpack is in the Yampa, White, Colorado, Arkansas and North Platte River basins. Virtually all of the remaining snowpack is in northern Colorado, while southern Colorado has seen just about all of its snowpack melt off.
The National Resources Conservation Service survey is based on an average reading of 95 different sites across Colorado.
This is yet another point of reference about the extraordinary winter Colorado experienced this past season. Snowpack levels stayed well above average through the second half of the winter, huge storms pounded Colorado’s mountains on a regular basis, and chillier-than-average weather deep into spring kept the snow on the ground longer than usual. In particular, a surge of April and May cold and snow helped boost snowpack levels to nearly off-the-charts levels.
For context, in 2018, Colorado’s snowpack had fully melted off by June 10, according to the same survey. Normally, Colorado’s snowpack fully melts off by the third or fourth week of June. In a warming and drying climate, it’s become increasingly rare to get snowpack to last into July, let alone well into the second week of the month.
The big winter helped eliminate Colorado’s drought and will greatly reduce wildfire potential for the first part of the summer. In addition to that, it’s helped replenish reservoirs as well — even if it meant summer’s delayed arrival for most of the state.
In the near term, however, a more typical summer pattern will continue to melt off the remainder of the state’s snowpack. Temperatures will be at or above average for most of the state through the weekend.
