From The Colorado Springs Gazette (Ryan Maye Handy):
A Christmas snowstorm in Colorado triggered hundreds of avalanches and closed several mountain passes, but it also left much of the state with a sizable boost in snowpack, a key to ensuring communities will have enough water reserves come summer.
“Our winters really seem to be made or broken by the presence of one or two big storms … and this was one of those big storms for us,” said Joe Ramey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. “It was a season-defining event for us.”
The storm brought much-needed moisture to southwestern Colorado, which for years has been drier than the Front Range, but drastically improved snowpack measurements around the state. Colorado’s water comes mostly from mountain snowpack accumulated during the winter and spring. In a few weeks, federal and local agencies will start monitoring that snowpack and its equivalent amount of water to forecast water reserves for the year.
“It is still early season, but we got a lot of moisture out of this,” Ramey said. “That’s important for Colorado.”
[…]
Ramey said a veritable “river of moisture” blew in Colorado on Dec. 20 from the central Pacific, bringing heavy snow and wind. The wind in particular might have set up the mountain areas for high avalanche risk, since wind-loaded slopes are more prone to slides.