From the Loveland Reporter Herald (Pamela Dickman):
“We got off to a bang-bang fast start with a lot of early season snow,” said State Climatologist Nolan Doesken. Only one storm brought snow with a lot of water, yet the area is at 3.67 inches of precipitation since Oct. 1, Doesken said. “That’s above-average precipitation for the beginning of the winter season,” he said.
Higher up in the mountains, the water level in the snow that has fallen is at or near average in the two basins that feed into the Colorado Big-Thompson Project, the diversion project that brings water from the other side of the Continental Divide and fills Carter Lake and Horsetooth Reservoir. The amount of water in the snow sat at 85 percent of average in the Upper Colorado Basin and 101 percent in the South Platte Basin on Friday, said Brian Werner, spokesman for the Northern Colorado Water Conservancy District…
Carter Lake, Horsetooth and other reservoirs that hold Colorado Big-Thompson water are 15 percent above average, while other water storage facilities in the region are sitting at 35 percent over average. “There’s more water in the river than there has been in a decade,” Werner said.