Colorado's snowpack outlook is an "A" grade this year

It's not every year Colorado has such a stunning snowpack to tout, summer of 2024 is shaping up to be a wet one thanks to the significant amount of frozen water stashed away in our mountains. 

"Well above normal in the Colorado River basin at 155%," said Nathan Elder, manager of water supply at Denver Water. "Then just a bit above normal, 121% in our South Platte River Basin interaction area."

Elder said normally, the snowpack has started to melt down at this point and while the snowpack feeding the Dillon Revisor HAS started to go at this point, it was close to hitting the record for the latest melting point (missed it by five days).

 "We just haven't seen it this year," Elder said, talking about the spring heat. "It's been a little bit cooler."

That high snow pack and late melting point help to make sure we have the best chance of full water stores come the end of summer, when things start to dry out again. 

"It's pretty good indicator too for wildfire risk," Elder said. "The plants stay wet, the ground stays wet and you reduce that wildfire risk."

Part of this is in Coloradan's hands too; making sure we are only using water when we actually need it, like keeping sprinkler systems off while we get our spring rainstorms. 

"We haven't seen them starting to turn on those irrigation systems yet," Elder said, excitedly. 

As for the water that stays up in the high country, Frisco Marina General Manager Logan Snyder says this is the kind of year he dreams about. 

"I'm super, super excited about it," Snyder explained. "We have pontoon boats, fishing boats, kayaks, single tandem paddle kayaks, paddle boats, paddleboards, canoes...there's a lot to do here."

All of those made possible by a full revisor...which doesn't always happen every year.

"It's funny, towards the end of the year, going into the spring, you're like, 'oh, I'm tired of snow. I'm tired of...wait, we need the snow,'" Snyder said laughing. "We still need the snow pack, we still need the water. So yeah, I worry about water levels and snowpack pretty regularly, I'm watching this level like, all the time."