Good news about snowpack for Denver Water customers

If 2021-2021 was the winter of missed opportunity for snowpack, the 2022-2023 winter is shaping up to bring Colorado back to averages, according to Denver Water. 

"We've had a much more active pattern," Nathan Elder, Manager of water supply for Denver Water told CBS News Colorado. The latest reports from Denver Water show our snowpacks rounding towards their state averages already, and there are still two months of snow to go. 

"Typically March and April in our mountain collection areas are our biggest snow-producing months," Elder said. 

This year is especially primed to bring us back to a good place (after a year where we came in just under average, only thanks to a last-minute snow storm.) Thanks to monsoon rains in the summer and fall of 2022, the soil moisture is already in a good place, meaning any snowmelt will actually make it to its intended rivers and revisors instead of soaking into the ground right where it melts, like what happened last year. 

"We only saw runoff in the 70% of average this year because we had those really good monsoons and cooler temperatures this fall, and our soil moisture is in much better shape," Elder explained. "So if we get a normal snowpack near 100%, we're expecting runoff in the upper nineties, 95% area because not a lot will be absorbed by the soils before it makes it to the river."

So long as this pattern holds, things will shape up to an average, if not slightly above average year. But that's if the pattern holds. 

"We're in Colorado," laughed Elder. "You can never count on it."