Severe Drought Back In Southwest Colorado As Snowpack Lags Behind

DENVER (CBS4) - The northern and central mountains of Colorado are off to a banner start for snow this season with enough on the ground to allow many ski resorts an early open, including Winter Park, which celebrated their earliest opening in 80 years this past Saturday. The following maps show a comparison of snowpack on Nov. 13, 2018 versus Nov. 4 of this year.

One stark difference between the two maps is the lack of snow in southwestern Colorado. The San Juan River Basin is well below where it should be for early November. The growing drought in western Colorado is now classified as severe, shown in gold on the map below.

A few computer models show the chance for mountain snow returning to the state next week, with even more possible in the following week. The GFS model indicates that southwest Colorado could finally get in on the action so let's keep our fingers crossed that the models are right for the sake of slowing the expanding drought conditions.