The South Platte River Basin is up to 86% of average this morning. Click on the thumbnail graphic to the right to see the picture for the whole state. Don’t give up keep doing your rain dances or whatever you’ve been doing. It’s working.
From The Colorado Springs Gazette (R. Scott Rappold):
“We’ve had a fairly wet year (in southeast Colorado), so the agricultural users of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project that get their water from Pueblo haven’t taken all of it yet. So that’s sitting in the reservoir still,” said Kara Lamb, spokeswoman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, which runs the reservoir and the Fry-Ark project that diverts water to the reservoir from the Western Slope. “Some of that water has to be out by May 1 or they lose it.” The water level is 14 feet higher than normal for late March, and 17 feet below the overflowing point in the reservoir, Lamb said. To accommodate the swell in river levels with the spring melt-off, the Bureau will begin releasing the water May 1.
The water is owned by farmers and a few municipalities, Aurora being the largest, under contracts that let them store it there until April 15 – though they were given a one-time waiver this year to store it until May 1. Colorado Springs, as a city in the basin and a Fry-Ark project partner, does not stand to lose any water, said Utilities water resources manager Wayne Vanderschuere…
[Aurora] could lose 5,000 acre-feet – 1.6 billion gallons. While Aurora Water Department spokesman Greg Baker said officials hope to find someone to use it, southeast Colorado farmers don’t need it, so the water may have to be simply released downstream. He said Aurora’s other water supplies are in good shape…
Mike Gillespie, snow-survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service, doubts snow levels will recover in central and northern Colorado, even with a big spring storm expected to hit this week. “With a less than average water availability, we definitely see the more junior water rights go un-met. I don’t know if it’s going to be that severe yet this year, but it has the potential for that,” Gillespie said…
Vanderschuere said that occurs most summers, though this year it could be earlier. But with snowpack in the Arkansas River Basin at 107 percent and in the Hoosier Pass area – near the city’s Blue River pipeline – at 94 percent, and good snowpack on Pikes Peak, he is not worried…
Colorado Springs Utilities water storage (as of March 14): System-wide: 77.3 percent of capacity
From the Boulder Daily Camera:
A winter storm warning remains in effect for the Front Range foothills, Boulder and Denver through 6 p.m. Wednesday. The National Weather Service forecast calls for another 1 to 4 inches on Wednesday, with snow tapering off by afternoon. Total snow accumulation is expected to be between 12 and 18 inches.