Click on a thumbnail to view a gallery of snowpack data from the Natural Resources Conservation Service. The melt out has started in earnest in the southern and western basins. The South Platte Basin is hanging on a bit. Unlike last season and 2011 we haven’t gotten the big Spring storms boosting the snowpack. There may be something on the horizon today and tomorrow and next week. Keep dancing for snow.

Former NRCS snow guru Mike Gillespie told me a while back that this is the time of year to start paying attention to “current as a percent of peak” numbers instead of “percent of average.”

From The Greeley Tribune (Eric Brown):

A large snowpack has river flows in the mountains and foothills well above average for this time of year, but that hasn’t yet translated into historically full rivers closer to Greeley. There’s plenty of water coming down, experts say, but local farmers — having endured two dry and windy months — have been taking it out of the river about as fast as it’s been coming down during the past week.

“It’s been bone dry lately … so anyone who’s in priority to take water is taking whatever they can,” said Mike Hungenberg, a farmer near Greeley and Eaton, and president of the New Cache La Poudre Ditch and Irrigation Co. in Lucerne. He noted that, in addition to it being dry recently, some farmers could be taking more water than normal now because they’ve planted more acres this year than in recent years because of the positive water outlook.

The biggest contrast in river flows has been in the Poudre River. At its mouth above Fort Collins, the Poudre River was seeing flows of about 950 cubic feet per second on Tuesday — more than double the historic average of about 450 cubic feet per second for May 6 at that location, according to Colorado Division of Water Resources numbers. But by the time the river reached Greeley, flows on Tuesday were 35 cubic feet per second — far below the historic average of about 170 cfs for May 6 at that location.

It was a different story on the Poudre River near Greeley last week. Flows in the river near Greeley reached about 380 cfs on April 28 — well above the historic average of about 150 cfs for that date. Hungenberg noted that his ditch started delivering water to its local farmers a couple days later because they were in need, helping contribute to the sharp drop in stream flows in the river.

“A lot of factors play into it,” said Dave Nettles, the Colorado Division of Water Resources Division 1 engineer, based in Greeley. “We’ve had some cooler temperatures that have helped slow some of the flows. But no doubt we’re seeing farmers irrigating more than normal for this time of year because of how dry it’s been lately.”

With river levels historically low near Greeley and in Weld County, it could be a cushion the area needs to endure too much water coming this way later on.

“It could play a part in that,” Nettles said.

A well above-average snowpack in the mountains, combined with rivers and streams that are still littered with debris and compromised banks, has caused concern for potential flooding in northeast Colorado during the spring run-off period this spring.

Local farmers said they don’t like using this much irrigation water just to get their crops started, but they don’t have much choice.

Last September’s historic flooding gave local farmers good soil moisture heading into 2014 and, during the first two months of the year, precipitation in the Greeley area was double what it is historically. Since March 1, however, Greeley has only received about 2 inches of precipitation — about 40 percent less than normal. The recent exclamation point to the dry-spell was a series of windy days that parched the soil even more so. Local farmers say they’re glad to have the abundant run-off to help them get their crops off to a good start, but added that they’re eager for rain to come to the rescue, helping them reserve some of their run-off supplies for irrigating later in the year.

Meanwhile Clear Creek at Golden is up ~40 cfs this morning. From email from the USGS Water Watch system:

Streamflow of 285 cfs exceeds subscriber threshold of 200 at 2014-05-07 04:45:00 MDT
06719505 00060 CLEAR CREEK AT GOLDEN, CO

From email from Reclamation (Kara Lamb):

This morning we made some additional changes to the outflow at Olympus Dam. Inflows to Lake Estes were up again last night, as is typical for this time of year. As a result, in a series of two changes at 7:15 a.m. and again at 9:15 a.m., we bumped up the outflow from the dam to correspond with the forecasted inflows to the small reservoir. Today, the Big Thompson River is flowing at about 236 cubic feet per second at the top of the Big Thompson Canyon by the gage below Olympus Dam.

Now that runoff has begun, we will likely be making changes every day to adjust outflow with inflows. We are also going to move back to our regular operations schedule where we adjust the gates at Olympus Dam shortly after midnight each night to match the predicted inflows for the reservoir in the early morning hours.

Tenmile Creek flows 2X average right now, 2011 the most comparable year … #CoWater

— Bob Berwyn (@bberwyn) May 7, 2014

From CDOT via the Glenwood Springs Post Independent:

High water from the start of the seasonal mountain runoff prompted Colorado Department of Transportation officials to close a section of the Glenwood Canyon bike path on Tuesday afternoon. The path between the Shoshone put-in and the Hanging Lake trailhead will remain closed until further notice, CDOT spokeswoman Tracy Trulove said.

“We will monitor the situation daily, but for now that section is closed,” Trulove said.

It’s possible that other sections of the path could also be closed at times during the spring runoff season, she said.