Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website,

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

After a few warm and dry weeks, heavy precipitation returned to the West Coast States this past week; however, the heaviest amounts fell on California, which is almost completely free of dryness and drought. At least 1.5 inches fell on a large part of the state including much of the western tier, the higher elevations, and the northern Valleys. Much larger amounts fell on isolated higher-elevation and orographically-favored locations, with a few spots recording amounts approaching 10 inches (liquid-equivalent). Several feet of snow has piled up on a few spots across the Sierra Nevada, but overall the snowpack in this area remains significantly below normal. Other areas from northwestern California northward through the Cascades and points west also recorded significant amounts of precipitation, ranging from 0.5 to locally 3.0 inches. Similar amounts were more scattered across the rest of the interior West, with the largest totals confined to the highest elevations. As of early Tuesday Feb 17, this precipitation has not significantly boosted snowpack in some areas with less than normal amounts, specifically much of the Cascades, south-central Idaho, Scattered locations across western Wyoming, much of west-central and southwestern Colorado, central sections of Utah and Nevada, and the southernmost Rockies.

Farther east, moderate precipitation was fairly widespread over approximately the southeastern quarter of the contiguous states, east of the High Plains and from the central Great Plains, lower Ohio Valley, and mid-Atlantic region southward. Heavier amounts fell on scattered areas across the east-central and southeastern Great Plains, parts of the adjacent lower Mississippi Valley, and a few narrow swaths across the western Florida Panhandle and parts of the northern Peninsula. To the north, scattered light amounts with isolated moderate totals were recorded in upstate New York and parts of New England. Other areas across the High Plains and the northeastern quarter of the contiguous states reported little or no precipitation.

Some areas of improvement were introduced based either on this past week’s precipitation or a re-assessment of the effects from earlier storms. Specifically, improvements were introduced in central Idaho, the southwestern High Plains, and parts of the Tennessee, lower Ohio, and middle Mississippi Valleys. There was more deterioration than improvement overall, however, including areas scattered across the Eastern Seaboard, lower Mississippi Valley, Deep South, Upper Midwest, northern High Plains, and far southern Texas. Hawaii experienced areas of improvement for the second consecutive week while Alaska and most dry areas in Puerto Rico remained unchanged…

High Plains

Moderate to locally heavy precipitation fell on part of eastern Kansas, and scattered light to moderate amounts fell on the rest of the southern tier of the Region. Farther north, however, scant precipitation led to large areas of degradation across a large proportion of Wyoming and central through eastern Montana, with more limited deterioration introduced across parts of Nebraska and South Dakota. This resulted in moderate drought or worse covering a swath across most of Nebraska and adjacent areas westward through most of Wyoming and the northern, central, and western sections of Colorado. Severe drought (D2) or worse is widespread from western Nebraska across the southern tier of Wyoming through northern and central parts of Colorado…

West

Heavy precipitation was fairly widespread across California, which is currently almost completely devoid of any degree of dryness or drought. Elsewhere, widespread deterioration was introduced across central and eastern Montana, leaving most of the state entrenched in abnormal dryness to severe drought (D0 to D2), with an area of extreme drought in parts of north-central Montana. Elsewhere, only minor adjustments were made as light to moderate precipitation fell on a large part of the areas of dryness and drought – enough to preclude widespread deterioration, but not sufficient to justify much improvement. Only a few parts of central and south-central New Mexico were improved, primarily from the effects of precipitation prior to last week. Severe to extree drought (D2-D3) now extends across most of the western half of New Mexico, adjacent4 Arizona, central and northern Utah, parts of northern and southwestern Idaho, and parts of Pacific Northwest east of the Cascades…

South

Heavy precipitation (3 to locally 5 inches) dropped on a swath through central Arkansas while 1.5 to locally 3.0 inches were recorded from the lower Red River (south) Valley through the central tier of Arkansas into much of western Tennessee. Moderate to locally heavy amounts were observed over much of the west side of the lower Mississippi Valley and portions of eastern Texas. Amounts of several tenths of an inch to locally around an inch were reported across a large part of central and north-central Texas, most of Oklahoma east of the Panhandle, much of Mississippi and western Alabama, and eastern sections of Tennessee. Little or no precipitation was reported across the Texas and Oklahoma Panhandles, western Texas, and Deep South Texas. This pattern supported improvement across the western half of Tennessee and smaller areas of Arkansas and northwestern Mississippi, along with scattered spots across southern Oklahoma. Deterioration was fairly common in areas that missed most of the week’s precipitation, primarily in the lower Mississippi Valley, the immediate ArkLaTex region, and Deep South Texas. Intensifying dryness in the latter area prompted the introduction of exceptional drought (D4) in parts of Jim Hogg and Brooks Counties. D4 already existed in part of interior northeastern Arkansas and the southernmost reaches of the Texas Big Bend. Meanwhile, extreme drought (D3) expanded to cover most of south-central and Deep South Texas, parts of east-central Louisiana and adjacent Mississippi, portions of southern Oklahoma and northeastern Texas, most of northeastern Arkansas, and a few smaller scattered areas in western Arkansas and northeastern Oklahoma. During the past 90 days, fewer than 2 inches of precipitation have fallen on western Oklahoma, the Texas Panhandle, and the southwestern tier of Texas from the Big Bend into much of Deep South Texas…

Looking Ahead

The heaviest precipitation over the next few days is forecast along and near part of the West Coast, with at least 2 inches expected across northwestern California, the southern Cascades, and the central and northern Sierra Nevada. Up to 7 inches may fall in isolated higher elevations, most or all of which would be snow. Meanwhile, moderate to heavy amounts (0.5 to 2.0 inches) are forecast across Washington and Oregon from the Cascades westward. Similar amounts are forecast for the northern Great Lakes, and most locations from the Deep South through central New England, with lesser amounts expected over much of the central and northern Carolinas. There is a lot of uncertainty in this area, depending on the development and track of an East Coast storm system that could affect the mid-Atlantic and lower Northeast over the weekend. Light to moderate totals are anticipated over a large part of the interior West, including the Great Basin, much of the northern Intermountain West, and the higher elevations across the Rockies. Several tenths of an inch are possible across the lower Great Lakes, middle and lower Ohio Valley, and the east side of the lower Mississippi Valley. Little or no precipitation is expected across the northern and southern Plains, southern Florida, and northern Maine. Above-normal temperatures are expected from the Southwest through most of the Plains, with many locations expected to average 5 to 11 deg. F above normal. In contrast, subnormal temperatures are forecast in the northernmost Plains, where daily highs could average as much as 9 deg. F below normal. Meanwhile, 5-day average anomalies are expected to range from -2 to -5 deg. F across northern California as well as the Ohio Valley and many locations farther east.

The 6- to 10-day outlook for February 24-28 depicts increased chances for below-normal precipitation across much of the southern tier of the contiguous U.S., from the extreme southern Rockies through the central Gulf Coast and most of Florida. Chances for abnormal dryness exceed 40 percent across most of Texas and some adjacent areas. Farther north, heavier than normal precipitation is at least nominally favored from the mid-Atlantic, southern Appalachians, central Plains, and Desert Southwest northward to the Canadian border. Chances for unusually unsettled weather exceed 60 percent across central and northern California, and top 50 percent central California northward across western Washington and Oregon, as well as the middle and lower Ohio Valley. In Alaska, drier than normal conditions are favored along western parts of the state while surplus amounts are more likely over eastern areas. Across Hawaii, above-normal amounts are marginally favored statewide. Meanwhile, warmer than normal weather is expected to dominate the contiguous 48 states from the Appalachians to the Intermountain West, with chances for significantly warmer than normal conditions topping 80 percent in western Texas. Areas somewhat favoring below-normal temperatures are restricted to the West Coast west of the Cascades, and over much of the Florida Peninsula. Considerably higher chances for unusually cold weather cover most of Alaska, reaching above 70 percent in southwestern parts of the state. In contrast, warmer than normal conditions are somewhat favored across Hawaii, especially across Kauai, Oahu, and the southern Big Island.

Click the link to read the article on the Climate Becky website (Becky Bolinger):

February 16, 2026

A multi-day storm system is dropping big totals across the western U.S. this week. The Sierra Nevadas are likely to get over 3 feet of new snow, while the Interior Rockies and Cascades will see between 1-2 feet.

This storm is a welcome relief for many drought-stricken areas, especially given the near record low snowpack so far this season. NRCS snowpack is below to well-below average for most of the west. A startling number of SNOTEL sites in Colorado and Utah are reporting levels below the 5th percentile (meaning they are drier than 95% of historical records for this date).

At the Colorado Headwaters, snowpack is record low for this time of year. With only 56 days to go till normal peak snowpack, new accumulations would have to be record-breaking to get the basin to near-average levels. A much below average peak and early melt are much more likely. This has major implications for water supply, agriculture, and wildfire risk across the region.

These concerningly low snowpack accumulations are evident in the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center’s water supply forecasts. The April-July runoff forecast for Lake Powell (the Upper Colorado River Basin’s largest reservoir) is 38% of average, about a 4-million acre-foot deficit.

While we can expect snowpack and forecasted runoff to improve with the current storm, the overall outlook for the season remains concerning. Additional late season snows and colder temperatures could minimize further deteriorating conditions and the risk of large wildfires this summer. Stay tuned over the next couple of months!

Click the link to read the article on the Inside Climate News website (Bob Berwyn):

February 11, 2026

If you think of Earth’s climate system as a backyard swing that’s been gently swaying for millennia, then human-caused global warming is like a sudden shove strong enough to disrupt the usual arc and buckle the chains.

And if humans keep heating the planet with greenhouse gas pollution, the climate swing could lock Earth into a hothouse trajectory, as parts of the system feed on their own momentum, even if emissions are reduced later, an international team of scientists warned Wednesday in a new paperpublished in the journal One Earth. 

Their analysis covers 16 key Earth systems, including oceans, ice sheets and forests, that are likely to destabilize if the planet continues to warm. If large parts of the Amazon rainforest and tropical coral reefs die, they absorb less carbon dioxide, triggering a dangerous chain reaction of warming.

If Earth’s climate starts on a hothouse trajectory, it would represent a “global tipping point” as the heating sustains itself even if greenhouse gas emissions drop, said lead author William Ripple, a distinguished professor of ecology at Oregon State University and a leading researcher on climate tipping points.

In the backyard, that’s the moment when the push is so hard that the swing hesitates at the top, just long enough to show that the ride may not be under control anymore and the chains are being tested.

“What typically took thousands of years is now happening in decades,” Ripple said, adding that human-caused warming is already nudging the climate system out of 11,000 years of relative stability with good conditions for farming and societal development.

Earth could be entering a period of unprecedented climate change on a one-way trajectory, in which processes such as ice-sheet collapse can continue even if the average global temperature is stabilized, he said.

Recent observations suggest that the climate may be responding more strongly than some models predicted, Ripple added. “We are concerned that policymakers and the public may not yet be aware of these recent developments.”

In late January, another group of leading climate scientists urged policymakers to adopt a climate goal of limiting human-caused warming to 1 degree Celsius above the pre-fossil fuel era, which is more ambitious than the 1.5 to 2 degrees Celsius target set in the Paris Agreement. They’ve also recently reported that Earth is losing its reflective sheen, which amplifies warming, and that key ocean currents are changing in ways that destabilize the entire global climate system. 

But it’s not clear if the scientific warnings are making a difference in “a post-truth era in which too many people prefer pleasant lies over unpleasant truths,” said Reinhard Steurer, a professor of climate policy and governance at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences in Vienna who studies how climate science and policy interact. He said that new studies outlining disastrous scenarios are unlikely to have much impact in the current political climate, but that researchers should keep speaking out, and not surrender to “techno illusions or hopium.”

The authors of the new paper stressed that a self-sustaining hothouse trajectory is not the same as a Hothouse Earth state, which would be when the global climate rebalances at a much hotter average temperature.

No Good Analog Climates

Instead of offering a single new climate forecast, the paper synthesizes decades of research revealing how different parts of the climate system influence one another. When one part of the system is destabilized, they wrote, it can amplify stress in others, pushing the planet along a self-reinforcing warming pathway. 

Earth has had hothouse climates in the ancient geological past. But the authors of the new paper said there may not be a parallel to what’s happening now, at least not during the past 3 million years, co-author Johan Rockström, co-director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, said via email. 

That amount of warming goes beyond current expectations and would devastate ecosystems and communities globally. Many other current climate projections suggest that, under current policies, warming would level off somewhere between 2.7 and 3 degrees Celsius.

Human-caused warming is happening much faster than any other warming documented in the paleoclimate record, and it’s also unprecedented because it’s driven by a single dominant force, Rockström added: human greenhouse gas emissions. Under these conditions, research has documented that Earth is already losing some of the natural buffers that dampened climate swings in recent millennia.

“We now see worrying signs that the Earth system is losing resilience,” Rockström said. Recent extremes, he added, are a sign that the climate system “may respond more strongly to the same amount of warming than it did before.”

Click on a thumbnail graphic to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor website.

Click the link to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

This Week’s Drought Summary

The Lower 48 states and Alaska only saw degradations this week. There was a strong east-to-west temperature gradient again this week, with below-normal temperatures across much of the East and above-normal temperatures across the West. Another week of localized precipitation that missed large portions of the country led to expanding precipitation deficits. Degradations were also scattered across the West, from the Pacific Northwest into the northern and central Rockies, including portions of Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and western Colorado. Although some mountain snow fell, critically low snowpack with snow-water equivalent levels below the 15th percentile continues to dominate much of the region and support ongoing drought expansion. Across the High Plains and into the western Midwest, one-class degradations followed another mostly dry week. In the Northeast, despite colder-than-normal temperatures, a continued lack of meaningful precipitation contributed to worsening conditions in parts of Pennsylvania and southern New England. Degradations were also seeing across the South, from the eastern southern Plains of Oklahoma and Texas eastward into the Lower Mississippi Valley and the western Carolinas. Despite scattered precipitation in some locations, short- to mid-term precipitation deficits continue to grow, with drying soils and low streamflows supporting intensification. In southern Georgia and Florida, fire danger continues to rise, with parts of Florida reporting Keetch-Byram Drought Index values between 500 and 700.

In Hawaii, strong trade winds brought heavy precipitation and wind to the windward slopes of Molokai, Maui and the Big Island, where 4 to 10 inches of rain fell at lower elevations and snow at higher elevations, supporting one-class improvements in those areas…

High Plains

The High Plains saw little to no meaningful precipitation this week, with most of the region receiving less than 25 percent of normal and many locations at or below 5 percent of normal precipitation. Any snowfall was light and offered minimal liquid-equivalent benefit. In eastern Wyoming and eastern Colorado, precipitation deficits continue to deepen with soil moisture percentiles declining, and recent above-normal temperatures led to drying where snow cover is limited. This led to expansion of moderate (D1) and severe drought (D2) across parts of eastern Wyoming and Colorado into the southwest South Dakota, the Nebraska Panhandle and the western Nebraska Sandhills. Similarly, growing short- to medium-term precipitation deficits, below-normal soil moisture percentiles and elevated evaporative demand led to the introduction of extreme drought (D3) to Nebraska’s Panhandle. Eastern Nebraska also saw the expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) as the lack of precipitation has led to drying conditions. Across Kansas, degradations occurred primarily in the northwest, south and along the Missouri border in eastern Kansas following another dry week which, like the rest of the region, added to the growing precipitation deficits and drying soil moisture…

West

Precipitation across the West this week was light and uneven. Most low-elevation areas in California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah and western Colorado received little to no measurable liquid precipitation, with seven-day totals generally below 0.25 to 0.50 inches. Mountain snow did fall in portions of the northern Rockies and Pacific Northwest, but accumulations were locally light and patchy. Snowpack and Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) percentiles remain well below normal at many SNOTEL sites: much of Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming and western Colorado show SWE values in the lowest 15th percentile, with numerous locations in the single digits for this time of year.

Temperatures were above normal across broad areas of the interior West, especially in the Great Basin, central and eastern Wyoming, and northern Colorado, where daytime highs ran 5 to 15 degrees above average at times. These warmer temperatures limited snow accumulation in some basins and contributed to surface drying where snow cover was sparse or absent. 

Across the Pacific Northwest, isolated precipitation helped maintain existing conditions in parts of western Washington, Oregon and northern California. However, low SWE percentiles and expanding short- to mid-term precipitation deficits led to the expansion of abnormal dryness (D0) and localized moderate drought (D1) in Washington. Despite seeing precipitation this week, areas of Montana still saw degradations where short- to mid-term precipitation deficits, low soil moisture percentiles and poor snowpack continue to be of concern. Across Utah, Nevada and western Colorado, persistent 2 to 4 month precipitation deficits combined with declining soil moisture and very low SWE percentiles (snow drought) led to further degradations. Many SNOTEL sites in the central Rockies and Great Basin continue to report levels below the 10th percentile for snowpack, with Colorado experiencing its worst snowpack-to-date on record, according to Denver Water and 9NEWS…

South

Drought conditions across the South continued to deteriorate this week, as much of the region received little to no meaningful precipitation. Most areas recorded below 50 percent of normal rainfall, with many locations under 25 percent of normal. Portions of middle and northeastern Tennessee received 0.5 to 1 inch of precipitation, but amounts were insufficient to offset ongoing 30- to 90-day precipitation deficits. Degradations occurred across the southern Plains into the Lower Mississippi Valley as short- to mid-term precipitation deficits continue to grow across Louisiana, Arkansas and portions of Texas and Oklahoma, with many areas 2 to 6 inches below normal over the past few months. Soil moisture percentiles remain below normal across much of the region and are particularly low in central Louisiana, southern Arkansas and parts of western Oklahoma and South Texas. Streamflows in several basins continue to run below seasonal averages, with some gauges in low percentiles following weeks of limited recharge.

In Deep South Texas, long-term dryness continues to intensify. From August 14, 2025, through February 10, 2026, Rio Grande City ranks as the fifth warmest and third driest on record dating back to 1928, while McCook ranks as the second warmest and sixth driest since 1942 according to NWS and NOAA. A nearby Texas Mesonet site near Hebbronville recorded just 3.81 inches over the past 180 days, and another Mesonet site along the Starr and Jim Hogg County line recorded 11.5 inches, with only 0.33 inches falling during December and January combined. Persistent six-month precipitation deficits and continued warmth reinforced long-term hydrologic stress across the lower Rio Grande Valley…

Looking Ahead

Over the next five to seven days (Feb. 12–17), a widespread and active precipitation pattern is forecast across much of the western and southern U.S. The heaviest totals are expected from eastern Texas into Arkansas, where widespread amounts of 3 to 5 inches are forecast, with locally higher totals possible. Additional areas of 1 to 3 inches are expected across much of the lower Mississippi Valley, central Gulf Coast, and into portions of the Southeast. Farther west, widespread precipitation is forecast across California, the Great Basin, and into the central and northern Rockies, where liquid-equivalent totals of 1 to 3 inches are expected, with locally higher amounts in favored terrain. Lighter but still meaningful precipitation is forecast across portions of the Midwest and into parts of the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast. In contrast, much of the northern Plains is expected to remain relatively dry during this period.

The Climate Prediction Center’s 6-10 day temperature outlook (Feb. 17–21) favors above-normal temperatures across much of the central and eastern U.S., including the Plains, Midwest, Ohio Valley and Southeast. The strongest probabilities for above-normal temperatures are centered over the central Plains and lower Mississippi Valley. In contrast, below-normal temperatures are favored across much of the West Coast and portions of the Great Basin. Alaska favors below-normal temperatures across much of the mainland, while Hawaii is favored to see above-normal temperatures.

The CPC 6-10 day precipitation outlook (Feb. 17–21) favors above-normal precipitation across much of the western United States, including California, the Great Basin, and the northern and central Rockies. Above-normal precipitation is also favored across parts of the northern Plains and Upper Midwest. In contrast, below-normal precipitation is favored across the southern tier from southern Texas eastward across the Gulf Coast and into Florida. Much of the central United States, including portions of the Tennessee and Ohio Valleys, is favored to see near-normal precipitation during this period.

Click the link to read the article on the Water Education Colorado website (Shannon Mullane):

February 12, 2026

Biologist David Inouye spent part of his Tuesday afternoon harvesting Jerusalem artichokes from his garden in the 1,400-person town of Paonia in western Colorado.

“It’s been so warm and dry here that my garden’s ready to plant,” Inouye said. “I was actually thinking about maybe planting some spinach or peas this week.”

Even with current snowstorms, Colorado’s snowpack this year is, frankly, horrible. The entire state has been in a snow drought with a record-low snowpack. The signs are everywhere: Skiers see it when they hit the slopes. Water providers keep an eye on their reservoir levels and talk about summer watering restrictions. Wildland fire experts gauge fire risk this summer and push people to remove flammable brush from their properties.

Two weeks ago, Inouye skied up to the Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory near Gothic, where he and other scientists have been conducting research for over 50 years, and saw exposed dirt patches at 9,500 feet of elevation — areas that would normally be buried by snow. Bees, wildflowers, marmots and more could all be affected by this season’s thin, weak snowpack.

Snow showers in this week’s forecast offer a dose of relief, but they won’t be enough to get the state out of a tough, dry year. The Colorado Sun sought out experts from around the state to see what’s going on — and what we need to watch for looking ahead.

Colorado’s winter has been unseasonably warm with so few snowstorms that the mountain snowpack is the lowest it’s been since 1987.

Climatologists are scouring data from high-elevation federal weather stations, called SNOTEL stations, to gauge what this year’s water supply is going to look like. Stations were built over the years until, by 1987, there were enough to provide a comprehensive look at statewide snowpack.

As a headwaters state, snowmelt from Colorado’s mountains runs in all directions to provide water to communities in 19 downstream states before it reaches the Pacific Ocean and Gulf of Mexico.

This year is not quite as bad as two terrible winters in recent memory: 1976-77 and 1980-81. But some smaller watersheds in the state have been dry enough to break even those records, according to state climatologists at Colorado State University’s Colorado Climate Center who analyzed hand-gathered measurements that date back to 1940.

What has really set this water year apart is how warm it’s been, according to the climate center. Colorado just had the third warmest November and the warmest December in over 130 years of records.

Colorado is over 60% of the way through its snow season, which means there’s still some time to avoid a historically bad, record-breaking year statewide. But the chance of getting a normal snowpack becomes slimmer every day, said Peter Goble, assistant state climatologist at the climate center.

The winter storms this week will help, he said. But even if Colorado had a repeat of 2019 — an above-average snow year — from February through April, its snowpack would still be just below normal.

“We have not yet had a year when we were running really low at this point and then just had a magical second half of the snow season and got all the way back,” Goble said.

Visitation is down at ski resorts

The poor snow year has already taken a toll on ski resorts and local economies.

Vail Resorts last month told investors that visitation to its 37 North American ski areas was down 20% through Jan. 4 compared with the previous season. Company CEO Rob Katz pointed to “one of the worst early-season snowfalls in the Western U.S. in over 30 years” — with snowfall at the company’s Rocky Mountain ski areas in Colorado and Utah down 60% from 30-year averages — as the main reason behind the decline.

The company’s Beaver Creek, Breckenridge, Crested Butte Mountain Resort, Keystone and Vail ski areas account for more than a quarter of resort visitation in Colorado, the most trafficked ski state in the country. Vail Resorts is among several resort operators across the state that are cutting hours for workers as visitation ebbs and the lack of snow limits open terrain.

Colorado Ski Country has indicated its 20 members are seeing visitation declines in the “sizable double digits.”

Sales tax reports and end-of-season visitor counts are not due for a few months but several mountain communities are reporting lodging occupancy declines for the season around 10% as the snow-starved season limps further into February.

Meanwhile, the historic drought across the West has led to resort closures. In Oregon, Hoodoo, Mount Ashland and Mount Hood Skibowl have suspended operations as they wait for snow and Willamette Pass ski area is closed for two days midweek.

The thin snowpack left Colorado’s backcountry slopes with low avalanche danger in the middle of the winter, and that’s unusual, Ethan Greene, director of the Colorado Avalanche Information Center, said.

Since Nov. 1, CAIC has counted 31 people caught in avalanchesresulting in three injuries and no fatalities. That compares to 28 people caught in avalanches through mid-February in the 2024-25 season, resulting in three injuries and zero deaths. In the same span of the 2023-24 winter, CAIC tallied 47 people caught in avalanches, with three injuries and two deaths.

For winter sports enthusiasts, more dry days won’t be a great outcome, Greene said. More storms increase avalanche danger, but they also improve riding conditions.

This week’s winter storms bumped the danger level in northern Colorado to moderate and considerable levels Wednesday, up from a low danger rating Tuesday, based on the center’s avalanche danger map.

“We have a very thin and very weak snowpack,” Greene said. “It’s not posing a lot of danger right now, but if we go into a really active weather pattern that could change pretty substantially.”

City water also increasingly in doubt

Near-term droughts are a golden opportunity for Colorado water agencies to tap their long-standing signs declaring the need for more reservoir storage.

Aurora announced the final site choice for the proposed Wild Horse Reservoir in South Park on Tuesday, and pointed straight at the current drought as an urgent reason for building up emergency supplies for the Front Range.

The water provider’s reservoirs are at 60% of capacity, which is lower than the city wants to see for this time of year, particularly with a record-low snowpack, Aurora Water spokesperson Shonnie Cline said. The region would have to get all of its normal snowfall — plus another 50% — over the next two months to get back to average.

The city council will soon decide whether it will declare deeper drought restrictions for this summer, she said. Restrictions aren’t out of the question for another big Front Range water provider, Denver Water, which serves 1.5 million people in Denver and surrounding suburbs.

Denver Water draws 90% of its water supply from the mountain snowpack in the Colorado River and South Platte basins. The snowpack near its water diversion tunnels and pipelines in these basins was 55% and 42% respectively as of Monday.

Northern Water, which serves community water agencies and ditches for 1.1 million people and 615,000 acres, said reservoir storage levels for its Colorado-Big Thompson Project are higher than in previous looming snowpack droughts.

That project “was built for years just like this one — where a low water supply threatened the ability of the farms and cities in our region to produce the economic benefits expected,” Northern Water spokesperson Jeff Stahla said. “What that means is that we have enough water in storage right now to ensure crops get out of the ground and cities can produce the materials needed for this upcoming high-demand season.”

Northern Water has also been in talks for months with members who had bought into a $2.7 billion, two-reservoir and pipeline plan to add storage along the Poudre and South Platte rivers. Some communities have signaled they will drop out because of the massive project’s rising costs, while Northern Water has pointed to communities that stayed in because they need supply for future growth and stability.

The dozen-plus community water agencies receiving Northern Water this year, though, will have to consider drought savings measures.

“We anticipate that communities within our boundaries will likely put in place policies to ensure we don’t waste any water and can ensure that we use the stored water for as long as possible,” Stahla said.

On Thursday, Northern Water’s board will hear a proposal to tap into an additional pool of water, called the administrative pool, that wasn’t used last year. The board will have to consider the possibility that this year’s drought might last longer than one season as it considers how much to draw from reserves, Stahla said.

A deep drought from 2000 to 2002 cut into their reservoir storage and supplies, depleting it so much that it took seven years to recover, he said.

“We recognize that we should be thinking about many variables as we look to release water for 2026,” Stahla said.

It could get too cold for the pikas

The low snowpack could have impacts on critters in the high country.

“Pikas depend on snowpack to insulate them from cold winter temperatures at high elevations, so the low snowpack could potentially make it harder for them to survive the winter,” said Megan Mueller, a conservation biologist with nonprofit Rocky Mountain Wild.

Through the Colorado Pika Project, a partnership between the nonprofit and the Denver Zoo, community scientists collect data in Colorado’s mountains in the summer to help scientists better understand the pika population and how it is being impacted by climate change.

Because the surveys take place in the summer, Mueller said it’s not yet clear what consequences this year’s dry weather will have on pikas. But existing research shows pika populations have gone extinct at sites where winter snowpack was insufficient for insulating them from the extreme cold.

Volunteers seeking to help scientists better understand the impact of this year’s snowpack on Colorado’s pikas can sign up online to join the Pika Patrol.

Ground squirrels, marmots, chipmunks, bears and other mountain mammals might have to use more energy to stay warm in their habitats without that snowy insulation. Burning energy faster could mean some will starve or emerge from hibernation earlier, according to Inouye with the Rocky Mountain Biological Center.

And just like mammals, insects and plants struggle in warm, dry winters.

Colorado has about 1,000 species of native bees, many of which spend winter underground and depend on the snowpack’s insulation.

Inouye has been watching how wildflowers, like aspen sunflowers and larkspurs, bloom in different conditions since 1973. Flowers start to bloom as soon as snow melts. With a thin snowpack, that melt could happen in mid-April, especially on sunnier, south-facing slopes. Wildflowers will start to bloom early and could be stunted by hard freezes that can typically appear through early June.

An early, sparse bloom affects pollen resources, which are key for bumblebees and migrating hummingbirds as they nurture larval bees or lay eggs, Inouye said.

“It’ll certainly be a very early season for the blooming of the wildflowers,” he added. “That’s typically associated with lower numbers of flowers.”

Fire managers fear early start to fire season, severe wildfires

This year’s low snowpack has wildfire managers fearing an early start to fire season and severe fires as the temperatures rise, especially along the Front Range.

“We haven’t seen anything quite like this in 30 years,” the state fire division’s planning section Chief Rocco Snart said.

The lack of snowpack this year reminds Snart of the conditions that led to the “horrific fire seasons” in 2000, 2002 and 2012.

“They were in the same realm as where we’re at today. But now we’re worse than those,” he said.

n those years, more than a dozen notable wildfires ignited amid extremely dry conditions. Hundreds of thousands of acres burned across the state and hundreds of homes were destroyed. In 2000, two human-caused fires destroyed 80 homes on the Front Range, while another fire sparked by lightning scorched 23,607 in Mesa Verde National Park, according to the National Weather Service.

In 2002, six massive fires sparked across the state, including the arson-caused Hayman fire that charred more than 137,000 acres across five Front Range counties and became the largest wildfire in Colorado history at the time. Five firefighters died and more than 600 structures were destroyed.

And in 2012, six massive wildfires rapidly spread amid extreme drought. Among them was the Waldo Canyon fire, which scorched 18,000 acres near Colorado Springs and destroyed 346 structures. Two people died.

If Colorado doesn’t start to see more precipitation soon, Snart said he fears wildfires will begin igniting much earlier than previous years, in March or April, and be fueled by winds. Vegetation will be dry as no new growth will have sprouted by then.

Snart sees wildfire risk along the Front Range as “especially problematic” because it picks up down-sloping winds from the mountains which are a “prime driver” of early season fires.

Fire risk is also very high along parched lower elevations of the Western Slope, he said.

Residents can take advantage of the warmer weather and start mitigating areas around their homes and being cautious of any activity that could cause sparks, especially on windy days, Snart said.

Amid “grim” outlook, farmers eye snowpack, forecasts

Jared Gardner apologizes for the interrupting beeps from his tractor’s GPS system as he makes his way across the family’s 3,500-acre farm near Rocky Ford. But he explains that it’s a different technology — the data on his smartphone — that grabs his attention multiple times each day as he considers the fate of the fields where he cultivates alfalfa, corn, sorghum and a mix of watermelons, cantaloupes and pumpkins.

Snowpack numbers, harvested from SNOTEL sites, influence planting in this agricultural corridor of the Lower Arkansas Valley. Snowpack determines runoff, which determines the flows of the Arkansas River, which determines what to grow and what to avoid.

When Gardner Farms plots out a two-year plan for crop rotation, it begins with a best-case scenario of conditions, untethered to limitations of drought. Closer to planting time, lower water estimates may steer operations to a Plan B, which might mean trimming back acreage for the thirstiest crops.

“My brother and I are probably on Plan C or D already, looking at this snowpack,” Gardner said. “It would take a small miracle to turn this thing around in a fashion that you’d say I have an ample supply of water. So for us, the first thing I do is pull corn back, to grow something with the yields that you need to break even in this marketplace. There’s not a lot of wiggle room for failure.”

A little more than an hour east on U.S. 50 near Lamar, Dale Mauch pays less attention to the snowpack numbers than the long-range weather forecasts, which he checks two or three times a day to gauge the fortunes of his 4,000 acres of hay, corn, wheat, oats and sorghum.

He, too, depends on replenishment of the Arkansas River. He pays special attention to the current windy, drying effects of a La Niña system and the promise of moisture from El Niño.

“The transition is supposed to be coming, but it may not be here till May, which could be too late for this year’s snowpack,” Mauch said, noting that his planting plans remain uncertain amid some forecasts that predict up to four feet of snow over the next few weeks.

“The silver lining for us down here by Lamar is we’ve had some storms with pretty good moisture,” he added. “So as far as being dry, we’re not in that bad of shape. We’re in better shape than the mountains right now.”

Overall, experts say the outlook for farmers — and ranchers, whose livestock rely on the same snowpack — leans away from optimism.

“It’s pretty grim,” said Kristen Boysen, managing director of the state Agriculture Department’s Office of Drought and Climate Resilience. “Producers are definitely bracing for the worst, but I don’t think anyone has changed their plans yet.”

Final decisions on what crops to plant, the size of cattle herds based on available water, and where to find extra grazing pastures or hay supplies all need to be made at most farms and ranches within a month, Boysen said. Even if agriculture sees snow over the mountains in the next few weeks, she added, the growing season may already be compromised.

“Across the state, we’ve seen so little moisture, so the soil is really dry,” Boysen said. “So any runoff we get from the mountains will just get sucked up so fast by the soil. And I think peak runoff will be very early. I think they’re crossing their fingers that it rains on their farm.”

Back in Rocky Ford, Gardner remains hopeful that a cold front forecast for the coming days might generate moisture to fulfill a farmer’s innate optimism. But even a foot or so of snow in the mountains probably won’t translate, in the long run, to much relief.

“Unless we just get an epic blizzard in the mountains, that sort of snow is kind of a Band-Aid for a bullet hole right now,” Gardner said. “And Colorado knows that. I think everyone in Colorado understands what a lack of snowpack means to the state, whether you ski on it, or irrigate with it, or just want to drink it.”

Colorado Sun reporters Olivia Prentzel, Michael Booth, Kevin Simpson and Jason Blevins also contributed to this report.

More by Shannon Mullane

Click the link to read the discussion on the Climate Prediction Center website:

February 12, 2026

ENSO Alert System Status: La Niña Advisory

Synopsis: A transition from La Niña to ENSO-neutral is expected in February-April 2026 (60% chance), with ENSO-neutral likely persisting through the Northern Hemisphere summer (56% chance in June-August 2026).

La Niña continued in January 2026, with below-average sea surface temperatures (SSTs) observed in the east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean. The latest weekly Niño-3.4 index value was -0.9°C, with the westernmost (Niño-4) and easternmost (Niño-1+2) indices at -0.4°C and 0.0°C, respectively. The equatorial subsurface temperature index (average from 180°-100°W) significantly increased, reflecting the strengthening and expansion of above-average subsurface temperatures across the Pacific Ocean. Atmospheric anomalies weakened due to subseasonal variability, but still reflected aspects of La Niña. Low-level westerly wind anomalies were present over the western equatorial Pacific, and upper-level westerly wind anomalies continued across the east-central equatorial Pacific. Suppressed convection was weakly evident near the Date Line and over the equatorial Maritime Continent, with enhanced convection located off the equator. The traditional and equatorial Southern Oscillation indices were positive. Collectively, the coupled ocean-atmosphere system remained consistent with La Niña.

The North American Multi-Model Ensemble (NMME) average, including the NCEP CFSv2, favor the onset of ENSO-neutral in February-April 2026. The team consensus also reflects this outcome, with ENSO-neutral persisting through the Northern Hemisphere summer 2026. For the late summer and beyond, there is a 50-60% chance of El Niño forming, though model uncertainty remains considerable and forecasts made this time of year tend to have lower accuracy. In summary, a transition from La Niña to ENSO-neutral is expected in February-April 2026 (60% chance), with ENSO-neutral likely persisting through the Northern Hemisphere summer (56% chance in June-August 2026.

Click the link to read the assessment on the NOAA website:

February 11, 2026

January Highlights:

• The global surface temperature was the fifth-warmest January on record—the smallest temperature departure since 2023.
• Snow cover extent was below average for North America and near average for Eurasia.
• Sea ice extent was near record low for the Arctic and below average for Antarctica.
• Global tropical cyclone activity was above normal with 11 named storms.

Temperature

January 2025 ranked as the fifth-warmest January in NOAA’s 177-year record, with a global surface temperature 2.02°F (1.12°C) higher than the 20th-century baseline. All 10 of the warmest Januarys on record have occurred since 2007, with the most recent five years (2022–26) among the top 10. 

In January 2026, unusually high temperatures prevailed across much of the Earth’s surface. The most notable high temperature departures were observed across the Arctic, Greenland, the western U.S., Canada, Africa, southern and eastern Asia and parts of Australia, where temperature departures were at least 3.6°F (2.0°C) above average. Several regions across the globe experienced their warmest January on record, including parts of Greenland, Africa, Asia, the Atlantic and parts of the Pacific and Southern Oceans. Notably, Africa experienced its warmest January on record, while North America, South America and Oceania had a top 10 warm January.

In contrast, notable below-average temperatures were observed in Alaska, the eastern U.S., Europe, northern Asia and across parts of Antarctica and the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean. However, no land or ocean areas experienced record-cold January temperatures.

Snow Cover

In January 2026, snow cover extent across North America and Greenland was 150,000 square miles below average, tying with 2002 for the 12th-smallest January extent on record. Meanwhile, Eurasia saw near-average coverage at 11.48 million square miles. Overall, Northern Hemisphere snow cover for January was slightly below average at 18.12 million square miles.

Regionally, snow deficits were most pronounced across the western half of the contiguous U.S. and central Asia extending into China. In contrast, above-average snow cover was observed in the south-central U.S. extending towards the Northeast, central and eastern Europe, Japan and parts of northern and northeastern China.

Sea Ice

Global sea ice extent was the fifth smallest for January in the historical record at 550,000 square miles below the 1991–2020 average. The Arctic sea ice extent was below average by 340,000 square miles, tying with 2025 as the second-smallest January extent in the 48-year record. The Antarctic sea ice extent for January was the 13th smallest at 210,000 square miles below average.

Tropical Cyclones

Global tropical cyclone activity in January was above normal, producing 11 named storms. Four of these reached tropical cyclone strength, and two intensified into major tropical cyclones. Most of the activity occurred in the Southern Hemisphere (South Indian, Australian and Southwest Pacific basins), with one named storm in the West Pacific. No storms formed in the North Atlantic, East Pacific or North Indian basins, which is typical during January.

Notably, Tropical Cyclone Fytia, in the Southern Indian basin, made landfall in northern Madagascar at the end of the month as a strong cyclone, bringing heavy rainfall and widespread flooding. The storm caused at least 12 deaths, displaced thousands and damaged or destroyed thousands of homes.

For a more complete summary of climate conditions and events, see our January 2026 Global Climate Report or explore our Climate at a Glance Global Time Series.

Click the link to read the release on the NRCS website:

Warm and dry conditions during January drove Colorado snowpack to record low levels statewide. Late month snowfall was insufficient to change overall conditions, increasing the likelihood of below normal peak SWE and reduced spring runoff across most river basins.

February 10^th, 2026 – Warm and dry conditions persisted across Colorado during most of January, which has led to record low snowpack for much of the state. Every major river basin across Colorado received below normal precipitation in January, ranging from 58 percent of median in the Upper Rio Grande river basin to 76 percent of median in the Arkansas river basin. Although there were a series of storm systems during the first and last week of January which delivered snowfall across the state, this was not enough to improve overall conditions. Based on the 1991-2020 median, current statewide snow water equivalent (SWE) is 55 percent of normal, and ranges from 48 percent of normal in the Arkansas river basin to 64 percent of normal in the Laramie-and-North Platte river basin. Since January 13^th, snowpack across Colorado has been at record low levels when compared to the 30-year normals, and with only a couple more months left in the typical snow accumulation season, it looks less likely that we will receive enough snowfall by April 1^st to achieve normal peak SWE. It would take consistent, record-breaking snowfall for the rest of the season to reach normal peak SWE, and with the long-term outlooks, that is looking highly unlikely. Based on projection plots, even if the state receives average snowfall (50% projection) for the rest of the season, we would end up around 70 percent of median peak SWE (figure 1).

Current statewide reservoir storage is 86 percent of median, slightly lower than this same time last year which was 94 percent of median. It’s certainly not ideal to have low reservoir storage during these dry years. With basins below normal reservoir levels will likely face more severe water shortages this upcoming runoff season. All major river basins currently have below normal reservoir storage, except the Upper Rio Grande, South Platte, and Arkansas river basins which are at 120 percent, 102 percent and 100 percent of normal. February 1, 2026 streamflow forecasts at the 50 percent exceedance probability show similar spatial trends as snowpack and precipitation. Current streamflow forecasts are predicting below normal streamflow across the entire state. They range from 28 percent of normal for Sangre de Cristo Creek to 91 percent of normal for the Big Thompson River at Canyon Mouth. Notably, the combined Laramie-North Platte and Colorado Headwaters river basins have the lowest streamflow forecasts in the state at 50 percent and 58 percent of normal. Overall, the record warm and dry conditions that have persisted for much of the 2026 water year have been detrimental for Colorado’s water supply outlook. All current indications are pointing to well-below normal streamflow across the state.

* San Miguel-Dolores-Animas-San Juan River basin

* *For more detailed information about February mountain snowpack refer to the  February 1^st Colorado Water Supply Outlook Report. For the most up to date information about Colorado snowpack and water supply related information, refer to the Colorado Snow Survey website. 

Click the link to read the report on the NRCS website (and to access major basin information). Here’s an excerpt:

Click the link to read the article on the Colorado Climate Center website (Russ Schumacher):

February 9, 2026

Colorado’s mountain snowpack is in bad shape this year. It’s been extremely warm, and snowstorms have been few and far between. Based on data from the SNOTEL network, the amount of water stored in the snow is the lowest at this point in the winter since at least 1987. Sometimes when one part of the state is lacking for snow, another region is doing ok, but not this year. Essentially all of Colorado is in a snow drought.

Snow droughts have been getting more common in Colorado in the 21st century. But those who have been around Colorado longer than I have may also remember two other terrible winters for snow: 1976-77 and 1980-81. In fact, some photos sit on my desk from former state climatologist Nolan Doesken from tours through the mountains in those years. At that time, snowmaking was uncommon at the ski resorts, and there were serious concerns about whether the ski industry would survive through those two historic snow droughts. (This story from 2012 by Jason Blevins, then at the Denver Post, now at the Colorado Sun, has some relevant background.) We’ve been fielding quite a few questions about how the snowpack this winter compares to those brutal years, so let’s take a closer look.

First, a bit about snow measurements

Because of the importance of mountain snow to water supplies, the federal government (specifically, the Department of Agriculture) has for decades collected snowpack data across the western US. The USDA snow survey was established in the 1930s, with routine “snow course” measurements in the winter and spring. These are manual measurements of the snow depth, snow water equivalent, and so on. (Here’s some archival footage of snow surveying. I believe that smoking a pipe while taking the measurements is discouraged these days.)

Measuring snow this way takes a lot of time and effort, however. So the 2nd pillar of the USDA’s snow survey program, the “Snow Telemetry” or SNOTEL network, was established starting in the 1960s. These are automated stations that use a “snow pillow” to measure the weight of the snow, and convert that into an amount of liquid water, among other measurements. SNOTEL data allow agricultural producers, water managers, climatologists, and the public to keep tabs on the snowpack in near-real-time. The snow course measurements have the advantage of a longer period of record to compare to, but are only collected once a month from February through May; the SNOTEL data are available daily from over 100 stations but with a shorter period of record.

What do the data show for this winter?

The graph up at the top shows that in the SNOTEL era, Colorado’s snowpack is the worst on record as of early February. However, there weren’t yet any SNOTEL stations in Colorado for the 1976-77 winter, and the network was still being built out as of 1980-81. So, if we want to compare the current snowpack to those two years, we’ll have to take a look at the tried-and-true snow course measurements, which the USDA has been collecting for the first time this season over the last week or so.

When comparing the snow water equivalent on February 1st at 62 snow courses with more than 50 years of data, there are eight sites where this year (2026) is the lowest on record. They are shown with the dark brown circles on the map below. Another fourteen sites have either the 2nd or 3rd lowest snowpack on record, and many more are in the bottom 10 years historically.

We can also look at which years had the lowest SWE as of February 1. At the locations where this year isn’t the worst snowpack, the worst February conditions were generally either in 1977 or 1981 (with some dishonorable mention to 2018 in the southern mountains.)

Using data from 20 snow course sites in Colorado with consistent data back to at least 1940, we can see that this year has the lowest snow water equivalent since the two terrible years of 1977 and 1981, and lower than any of the other years in the record.

So, it’s fair to say that this year so far has the worst snowpack in Colorado in over 40 years. But in most locations it’s not quite as bad as the conditions were in 1976-77 and 1980-81.

However, obviously a lot of things have changed since the late 1970s! Nearly all ski areas now have robust snowmaking operations, which allow them to keep terrain open even when there’s not much snow falling from the sky. On the flip side, the population of Colorado has grown immensely—approximately twice as many people live in the state now as did in 1980. Which means that the demand for water (and for winter recreation) is much greater, and thus the potential impacts of a snow drought are much greater as well.

What has really set this water year apart thus far is how warm it’s been. For Colorado statewide, we just had the 3rd warmest November and the warmest December in over 130 years of records. January was very warm as well. Official numbers for January will be released this week (make sure you’re signed up to get our monthly summaries), but it clearly ranked among the top 20 warmest Januarys, and early February has continued the streak of warmth. The warmest start to a water year we’ve ever seen, combined with a lack of the snowstorms we typically see in winter, has brought us to the worst mid-winter mountain snowpack in decades. 

We do still have about 2 months to go before the mountain snowpack typically hits its peak, which means there is still time to chip away at the deficit. Looking back at the major mid-winter snow droughts discussed above, in 1977 it remained dry in late winter and spring, and that season still holds the record for worst April 1 snowpack at many locations in Colorado. In contrast, the spring of 1981 was fairly active; at least enough to emerge above record-low territory for much of the state.

This week, the pattern will finally shift away from warm and sunny conditions to more consistent chances for snowfall. However, it’s too early to say how long the incoming pattern will stick around, and unfortunately there aren’t any blockbuster storm cycles on the horizon in the near term. An active spring would certainly be very welcome, but the odds of rebounding to near normal peak snowpack conditions are dwindling. More realistically, we are just hoping to get enough snow to avoid a historically bad year.

*special thanks to Brian Domonkos of the USDA/NRCS Colorado Snow Survey for providing useful details about this year’s snow course measurements

Click the link to read the article on The Water Desk website (Mitch Tobin):

February 4, 2026

This story was produced by The Water Desk, an independent journalism program at the University of Colorado Boulder’s Center for Environmental Journalism. 

The American West’s snowpack is valuable for many reasons.

Snowmelt supplies much of the water flowing through the region’s streams, rivers, irrigation canals and household faucets—a vital role that has taken on new urgency this winter as much of the West struggles with scant snow cover.

Snowfall supports countless species, maintains forest health and helps keep a lid on wildfires. It even cools the planet by reflecting sunlight. 

Snowflakes also underlie the region’s multi-billion-dollar winter sports industry, fueling local economies and drawing millions of participants. In warmer months, boating and fishing depend on water that was once frozen.

Snow performs all these functions, but can its worth be calculated in dollars and cents? And how is climate change affecting that value?

Like many aspects of nature, snow is easier to monetize in some domains than others. Its ecological benefits are complex, and its aesthetic qualities are subjective: some Westerners love the ice crystals, others dread them. 

But in the economic realm, researchers have attempted to put a dollar figure on the region’s snow, and the numbers they’ve generated are huge. 

“This stuff’s worth trillions, not billions” of dollars, said snow scientist Matthew Sturm, lead author of a widely cited 2017 paper in Water Resources Research that estimated the value of the water embedded in the West’s snowpack. “I turn on the tap in the Western states—what comes out of it is mostly snow.”

The Colorado River, which supplies drinking water to tens of millions of people and irrigates vast croplands, is primarily driven by snowmelt. The river generated an estimated $1.4 trillion in annual economic activity, according to a 2014 report commissioned by Protect the Flows, a business coalition, and conducted by Arizona State University. Adjusted only for inflation—not the region’s growth—that figure was equivalent to about $1.9 trillion in 2025, underscoring the high stakes of the ongoing, contentious negotiations over how to manage the Colorado River.

For some researchers, assigning a dollar value to snow is more than an academic exercise. In an era of tightening budgets and federal cutbacks in science, economic estimates can help justify investments in monitoring and studying snow—and highlight how much is at risk as the climate warms.

“If you want society to respond, you better talk about things that are fairly immediate, right at people’s doorsteps, and are easy to explain,” said Sturm, a professor of geophysics at the University of Alaska Fairbanks’ Geophysical Institute and the author of A Field Guide to Snow.

Or as Sturm’s paper puts it, “the ‘killer argument’ to the wider public that vigorous snow research is important would come by framing the argument in terms of money, something everyone understands.”

Peer-reviewed studies explicitly valuing the snowpack are rare, but some analyses have also calculated the sizable economic impact of snow sports. This winter, skiing and snowboarding in the West have been constrained not only by a lack of snowfall but also by record warmth that limited some resorts’ ability to make artificial snow. 

A 2024 report from the National Ski Areas Association concluded that downhill snow sports generate $58.9 billion in annual economic activity in the United States and support an estimated 533,000 ski and snowboard jobs nationwide. 

While the snowpack delivers tangible economic benefits—some easier to price than others—snowfall also carries real costs. Any accounting of snow’s economic impact must also reckon with the damage it causes.

Winter weather contributes to fatalities from avalanches in the mountains and from heart attacksin cities among people shoveling snow. But those deaths pale in comparison to the toll on slick roads. Each year, 24% of weather-related vehicle crashes happen on snowy, slushy or icy pavement, and 15% occur when snow or sleet is falling, according to the Federal Highway Administration. More than 1,300 people are killed and more than 116,800 are injured each year in crashes on snowy, slushy or icy pavement, the agency reports, though not all of those incidents are weather related.

Valuing the snowpack’s water

The 2017 paper began with a phone call that Sturm made to Michael Goldstein, a professor of finance at Babson College with whom he had previously collaborated. 

“Hey, what do you think snowpack’s worth?” Goldstein recalled Sturm asking.

Goldstein wasn’t a snow expert, but he told Sturm, “If we make some simplifying assumptions here, I could value it for you.”

“I just thought it was a cool question,” said Goldstein, who is also the Donald P. Babson Chair in Applied Investments at Babson. 

Since its publication, the study has been cited nearly 400 times, according to Google Scholar. 

Viewed through an economic lens, the snowpack’s role as a mountain water tower provided a clear value that Goldstein could quantify.

“Nature naturally stores the water for you for free. You didn’t have to build a reservoir,” Goldstein said. “If that goes away, that actually has a cost. And the cost is the replacement cost of either storing the water or getting water from a different source.”

Climate change is already having a variety of profound effects on the West’s snow, such as shrinking the snowpack season, but the study focuses on one key impact: the shift from snow to rain as temperatures rise. 

Even if total precipitation remains unchanged in the decades ahead, a transition from snow to rain—and faster melting of the snowpack—means runoff will occur earlier in the year. In much of the West, however, it may be impossible to capture all that earlier water for later use because dam managers must leave enough empty space in reservoirs to reduce the risk of catastrophic flooding.

“There is not enough reservoir storage capacity over most of the West to handle this shift in maximum runoff and so most of the ‘early water’ will be passed on to the oceans,” according to a 2005 study.

To estimate the declining value of the snowpack in a warming climate, the 2017 paper made some assumptions about the transition from snow to rain—an evolution expected to be more pronounced in warmer regions such as California and Oregon than in colder locations like the Northern Rockies. 

Examining a range of future trajectories spanning five to 100 years, the researchers assumed that half of current snowfall would fall as rain by the end of the scenario. 

For the 50% of snow that would eventually convert to rain, some of the water could be captured by existing reservoirs. But while Lake Mead and Lake Powell on the Colorado River currently have plenty of room to spare, the authors note that “virtually every report we have found on the heavily dammed water systems of the West suggests that reservoir capacity (except when immediately following drought) is maxed out.” As a result, the paper assumes that water systems would lose two-thirds of the reduced snowmelt runoff.  

“We’re losing, essentially, the storage capacity of snow—meaning in lieu of snow, we get rain,” Sturm said.

With their estimates of the amount of water lost as snow shifts to rain, the researchers could then multiply those figures by the cost of water to begin determining the decline in monetary value. The paper uses two water prices to bracket its estimates: $200 and $900 per acre-foot (an acre-foot is the volume of water needed to cover an acre of land to a depth of 12 inches, or 325,851 gallons). 

In reality, Goldstein said, the price of water would rise as supplies became scarcer. But the paper holds water prices constant over time, an assumption that yields a conservative estimate of the snowpack’s value.

Discounting the future

The price of water varies greatly across the West, so estimates of the snowpack’s value will necessarily span a broad range. But water costs aren’t the only reason it’s challenging to pin down the snowpack’s monetary worth. 

Another challenge the paper grapples with is the changing value of money over time. Even in the absence of inflation, if someone offered you $100 right now versus $100 in a year, the economically rational choice would be to take the $100 today. After all, a lot can happen in a year—and you could invest the $100 in the meantime. But what if the offer were $105 or $110 a year from now? 

To convert future benefits into today’s dollars, economists use a “discount rate” that accounts for risk and the preference for receiving payments sooner rather than later. A discount rate is “like the foreign exchange rate between consumption today and consumption tomorrow,” Goldstein said.  

The choice of the discount rate can make a big difference in how future costs or benefits are calculated, and it’s often a pivotal factor in studies of the economics of climate change. In the snowpack paper, the authors use three discount rates—1%, 3% and 6%—although they omit the 6% rate in their final valuation “because it is fairly extreme and unlikely to be correct in a water-stressed future world.” 

The higher the discount rate, the more heavily future losses are discounted, reducing the economic justification for acting today, such as acquiring new water supplies or building additional reservoirs. 

Assumptions about the discount rate, the price of water and future climate trajectories all weigh heavily on estimates of the value of the snowpack’s water. In summary, the authors conclude that about 162 million acre-feet of water is deposited as snow in Western mountains each winter. If half of that snowfall were to fall as rain in the future—and two-thirds of that water were to run off to the ocean without being captured—water systems would lose roughly 53.9 million acre-feet per year. That volume is roughly the combined storage capacity of Lake Mead and Lake Powell, the nation’s two largest reservoirs.

The total replacement cost for the lost water ranged from $120 billion to $4.76 trillion, according to the 2017 study. By comparison, the federal government’s budget totaled about $3.85 trillion in fiscal year 2016.

“To date, a full financial evaluation of the importance of snow in our lives has not been made, but computations here and elsewhere indicate it is on the order of trillions of dollars,” the authors write. 

The snowpack’s importance and value vary across the West, with some watersheds more dependent on snowmelt than others. To estimate the local impacts of future snowpack losses, researchers used data from the 2017 study and another paper to create an interactive map that shows the share of water in each Western river basin derived from snow and lets users adjust key variables, including the discount rate, the price of water and the rate at which snow transitions to rain.

Investing in snow science

Jessica Lundquist, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Washington, called the paper “interesting and unique.” Lundquist, who wasn’t an author of the study but is acknowledged for advising the researchers, said the paper not only tried to put a dollar value on the snowpack but “also was trying to put a value on the knowledge.”

“I like the paper because it was a collaboration between a snow scientist and an economist,” Lundquist said. While the estimates of the snowpack’s value are uncertain, Lundquist said the study provides a useful framework for assessing the financial implications of water management strategies. 

In a commentary on the 2017 paper, subtitled “Investments in snow pay high-dollar dividends,” Lundquist wrote that the study “puts the value of snow one thousand times higher than the estimates of snow based on tourism alone.”  

When the commentary was published, snow scientists were trying to convince NASA to launch a satellite mission to study the snowpack.

“We were often getting questions about what is the value not only of snow, but of studying snow,” Lundquist said. 

A satellite dedicated to monitoring snow never launched. But scientists continue to track the snowpack using other spacecraft, along with a suite of tools that includes aircraft, automated stations and manual measurements.

“I think we’re getting progressively better at figuring out how much snow is in the mountains,” Lundquist said. “I think we’ve made tremendous progress in the last 10 years that we can actually quantify it quite well with a number of ways.”

In other parts of the world, however, snowpack monitoring may be very limited. “A lot of what still needs to be done is in other mountain ranges, other places that don’t have these observing networks,” Lundquist said. “There’s a lot of people who depend on water from the Himalaya who just have no idea whether it’s going to be a drought year or a flood year or what is upstream at all.”

Recreational impact of a shrinking snowpack

Beyond supplying water, the West’s snowpack also underpins the region’s winter recreation economy.

During the 2024–25 season, U.S. ski areas recorded 61.5 million skier visits, according to the National Ski Areas Association. This winter, however, visitation across much of the West has suffered amid a widespread snow drought. 

In January, Vail Resorts, which is publicly traded on the New York Stock Exchange, reported that visits to its mountains so far this season were down 20% compared to last season, primarily because of poor snow conditions. In the Rockies, only about 11% of the company’s terrain opened in December, when snowfall was nearly 60% below the 30-year average. 

A number of studies have examined how changes in the snowpack affect ski areas—both historically and in future projections. 

Between 1999 and 2010, the U.S. downhill ski industry lost an estimated $1.07 billion in revenue between low- and high-snowfall years, resulting in 13,000 to 27,000 fewer jobs, according to a 2012 analysis by University of New Hampshire researchers. The report was commissioned by Protect Our Winters and the Natural Resources Defense Council, two advocacy groups.

A 2024 study estimated that U.S. ski areas lost more than $5 billion from 2000 to 2019 due to fewer visits and higher snowmaking costs. Compared to the 1960-1979 period, ski seasons from 2000 to 2019 shortened by 5.5 to 7.1 days, according to a model of operations at 226 ski areas.

Looking ahead, the study projected that by the 2050s, ski seasons would shrink by 14 to 33 days under a low greenhouse gas emissions scenario and by 27 to 62 days under a high-emissions pathway. Under those scenarios, annual industry losses ranged from $657 million to $1.35 billion.

The 2024 study accounted for the added expenses of snowmaking, which requires investments in equipment and labor while also increasing water and energy use. It did not, however, include the broader ripple effects of shorter ski seasons on surrounding communities, where hotels, restaurants, bars, retailers, and gas stations depend heavily on tourists’ spending. 

A 2017 study examining future climate impacts on skiing and snowmobiling analyzed 247 winter recreation locations across the continental United States and projected how warming would shorten seasons. The authors concluded that “virtually all locations are projected to see reductions in winter recreation season lengths, exceeding 50% by 2050 and 80% in 2090 for some downhill skiing locations.” 

Those shorter seasons “could result in millions to tens of millions of foregone recreational visits annually by 2050, with an annual monetized impact of hundreds of millions of dollars,” the researchers wrote. They also noted that limiting greenhouse gas pollution “could both delay and substantially reduce adverse impacts to the winter recreation industry.”

A smaller, less reliable snowpack can also affect summertime recreation by reducing streamflows and reservoir levels that support fishing, boating and other water-based activities.

In Colorado, for example, outdoor recreation accounted for 3.2% of the state’s gross domestic product in 2023, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. Boating and fishing generated $689 million in economic activity in the state, while snow-related recreation was valued at $1.56 billion—more than any other state.

Other benefits—and costs—of snow

The snowpack’s importance to winter recreation and the West’s water supply are among the easier values to quantify, but they’re not the only benefits snow provides.

On a global scale, one of the most valuable functions of frozen water is that it reflects far more sunlight than bare ground or open ocean. This reflectivity—a property known to scientists as albedo—helps cool the planet. 

A 2013 study examining the thawing Arctic attempted to monetize the loss of that cooling effect. The decline in Arctic snow and ice—along with increased methane emissions from melting permafrost—was estimated to cost society $7.5 trillion to $91.3 trillion from 2010 to 2100. “The frozen Arctic provides immense services to all nations by cooling the earth’s temperature—the cryosphere is an air conditioner for the planet,” the scientists wrote. 

Then again, the loss of snow could reduce some costs to society.

“There’s some side benefits,” Goldstein said. “You might not have a flood because you’re not going to have a massive runoff all at the same time. That does happen. Some things will be reduced.” 

If snow disappeared, so too would snow days that disrupt travel and hamper economic productivity. Winter road maintenance accounts for roughly 20% of state transportation department maintenance budgets, according to the Federal Highway Administration, which estimates that state and local agencies spend more than $2.3 billion annually on snow and ice control annually. 

Between 1980 and 2024, the United States experienced 24 winter storms that each caused more than $1 billion in damages, according to the National Centers for Environmental Information. Collectively, those disasters cost $104.2 billion and claimed 1,453 lives.

While vehicle crashes, skier visits and acre-feet of snowmelt can be quantified and priced, snow’s benefits and costs also encompass many things that are difficult—if not impossible—to calculate. 

In many ecosystems, for example, snow and snowmelt are vital for plants and animals that have their own economic value, not to mention their intrinsic worth. The 2017 snowpack study did not attempt to price these so-called ecosystem services, which include keeping forests healthy, maintaining cold-water fisheries and sustaining biological diversity. 

Even more challenging to value are the mix of emotions that snow evokes. Beauty—and misery—are in the eye of the beholder. 

“Some people want their white Christmas,” Lundquist said, “and others are like, please don’t shut down my city.”