From The Pueblo Chieftain (Chris Woodka):
Advisories for the roughest reaches of river — Pine Creek, Numbers and Royal Gorge — were in effect Tuesday, and probably will remain for most of the week, as temperatures climb after a brief cool-down today. “Experience tells us that at those levels and above, people should consider not running the river if they don’t have the expertise and skills,” White said. “But the river is not closed.”[…]
Water levels in the Upper Arkansas River were over 3,000 cubic feet per second after Saturday, roughly double the median flow for early June. The snowmelt came later this year than in the past decade, but typical for historical conditions. The Arkansas River swelled to 4,000 cfs at Avondale by Tuesday, again roughly double the median average for the date.
The snowpack for the state is only 57 percent of average, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service Snotel sites, with the Arkansas Valley at 45 percent. Meanwhile, the Upper Colorado River basin, where the water imported into the Arkansas River Basin through tunnels and ditches originates, is at 59 percent of average. “We’ve brought over about 12,000 acre-feet so far,” said Roy Vaughan, manager of the Fryingpan-Arkansas Project. “It’s coming off hard, the way we don’t like it to. If it comes too fast, we leave some of our yield on the other side.” The project should bring over about 54,000 acre-feet, even though the snow sites show a dwindling snowpack, Vaughan said…
Some localized rainstorms last week also boosted moisture for the Arkansas River basin. In Pueblo, rainfall for the year is almost 6 inches, well above the normal of 4.3 inches