From the Valley Courier (Ruth Heide):
…recent storms have brought the [Rio Grande Basin] snowpack up to 110-115 percent of average, Division of Water Resources Division 3 Division Engineer Craig Cotten said on Tuesday. Reporting to a well rules advisory committee in Alamosa, Cotten said this type of pattern is similar to what has occurred in the past two years. “Going into December we were quite a bit below average and in December we shot up pretty good. That’s kind of the pattern we are seeing this year. Hopefully it will be like the last couple of years and it will continue to go on up.” Cotten added that although the basin is over 100 percent of average, the basin only has 39 percent of the total snowpack over the season.
Cotten added that although the basin is over 100 percent of average, the basin only has 39 percent of the total snowpack over the season. He added that the snowpack is widely varied throughout the basin with the highest reported snowpack at the Cumbres Trestle Snotel gauge at 160 percent and Beartown sitting only at 81 percent. At year end, it appears Colorado is in good shape with its obligations to downstream states through the Rio Grande Compact, Cotten said. Of the approximately 595,000 acre feet indexed on the Rio Grande this year, the state was obligated to send 160,000 acre feet downstream…
He said Colorado will be slightly over on its deliveries this year on both the Rio Grande and Conejos Rivers. At the beginning of December, the over-delivery was anticipated to be about 1,700 acre feet on the Rio Grande and about 700 acre feet on the Conejos. Cotten said those numbers could vary when the final water accounting is completed…
One of the main storage reservoirs for Rio Grande Compact water is Elephant Butte Reservoir in New Mexico. Cotten said that as of Monday, Elephant Butte had 360,000 acre feet of usable compact water in it. That is up from last week and will continue to rise short term. However, at the beginning of the year the usable amount of compact water will decrease significantly because portions of that water will be calculated for over deliveries from Colorado and New Mexico, Cotten explained. New Mexico will particularly have a fair amount of over delivery this year. As long as that usable compact water is less than 400,000 acre feet in Elephant Butte, storage is restricted in post-compact reservoirs such as Platoro Reservoir, Cotten added. He did not anticipate the 400,000-acre-foot number to be reached until the run-off season next spring.