From The Durango Herald (Jonathan Romeo):

During this period of La Niña, which can last up to five months, little, if any, precipitation makes it to Southwest Colorado as storms are pushed up to the northern parts of the state.

And this year, Cuoco said it’s playing out like a classic La Niña year.

As of Sunday, Southwest Colorado’s snowpack is at 34 percent of normal averages, while the Colorado, North and South Platte, and Yampa river basins are experiencing upwards of 75 percent of normal snowpack.

According to NWS data, only 0.39 inches of precipitation were recorded at the Durango La Plata County Airport for the entire month of January, about 1.12 inches below historic averages.

Last year, which was an El Niño year, more than 2.35 inches of precipitation was recorded for the month of January at the Durango-La Plata County Airport weather station.

Also, this past January was nearly 5.5 degrees warmer than historic averages.

The U.S. Drought Monitor lists nearly all of Western Colorado and the Four Corners region in a “severe drought.”

And unfortunately, NWS models show no signs of La Niña going anywhere anytime soon.

While scientists are able to track and measure global oceanic circulations, and know how these cycles move, they are less certain about the driving forces behind it, Cuoco said.

“What causes surface water temperatures in the ocean to warm back up toward normal, or to cool down?” Cuoco said, “we really don’t have that answer yet.”

Cuoco said the World Meteorological Organization, an intergovernmental organization comprised of 191 countries and territories, has been funding research to get at the answer for years.

These oscillations in surface water temperature have resounding impacts on weather conditions around the globe.

In El Niño years, for instance, parts of Southern Africa, the Philippines, Mexico and Central America may experience extreme drought, while areas like Bolivia, Ecuador and Cuba may get hit with catastrophic flooding.

Therefore, understanding what causes a particular year to have warm or cold surface water temperatures is a question sought after by the international community, Cuoco said.

“It’s something that has been well funded with widespread research in the hopes of understanding,” he said.

As for Southwest Colorado and its parched landscape, any hint of snow comes as a bit of good news.

Cuoco said there’s a slight chance the high country north of Durango – areas around Silverton, Hesperus, Rico and Ouray – have a 30 to 40 percent chance of scattered snow showers Monday through Tuesday.

If the storms pan out, it may drop a couple of inches, Cuoco said.

From KUNC (Luke Runyon):

Be prepared for some of the West’s biggest and most important rivers and streams to see record low flows this spring and summer.

That’s the message of the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center’s latest water supply forecast released Monday.

“Below average precipitation continued to be the norm and not the exception for the month of January,” the forecast report reads. “January marks the fourth consecutive month of the 2018 water year with widespread below average precipitation.”

The center’s forecasters are projecting the flows into Lake Powell — one of the largest human-made lakes in the country — to be 47 percent of average. The lake, on the Utah-Arizona border, is part of a reservoir system that supplies water to some 40 million people in the southwest. As of early February Lake Powell was at 56 percent of full capacity, while its sister reservoir, Lake Mead, was at 41 percent of full capacity.

The news is worse in the Colorado River’s lower basin, which includes Arizona, and portions of New Mexico and Nevada. In those states, spring runoff from February to May is projected to be be less than 30 percent of median.

The lowest water supply forecasts in the Upper Colorado River include the Dolores and San Juan Rivers in southwest Colorado, and across central and southern Utah including the Virgin, Sevier, and San Rafael River Basins.

Parts of the southern Rocky Mountains are currently experiencing the warmest and driest winter on record. Snowpack eventually turns into the region’s water supply, and without it, rivers and streams suffer. Snow measurement sites in southern Colorado, central Utah, and Arizona are reporting their lowest levels on record…

Last year’s above-average snowfall in the southern Rockies boosted reservoir levels throughout the region giving water managers some buffer to withstand a dry year, with both Arizona and New Mexico being the exception. Those two states are currently reporting below average reservoir storage.

From The Fort Collins Coloradoan editorial board:

The unusually dry winter has people in Colorado and across the West talking about the vagaries of the weather. But the more important conversation is about climate change.

Reporter Jacy Marmaduke wrote an interesting story that ran in the Jan. 28 print version of the Coloradoan — and, of course, on Coloradoan.com — about how climate change is affecting the state’s ski industry and how that impact is predicted to worsen in the decades to come.

There was a lot of bad news for fans of winter outdoor activities such as hitting the slopes at resorts in Summit County or snowshoeing in the upper reaches of the Poudre Canyon. Although snowfall amounts vary from year to year, the overall trend for the snowpack is less accumulation and earlier melting than in years past.

Snowpack has decreased 20 to 60 percent at most monitoring sites in Colorado since the 1950s, according to an Environmental Protection Agency analysis. Colorado’s average temperature has increased more than 2 degrees in the past 40 years.

Those trends are expected to continue. For ski resorts, decreasing snow translates to shorter ski seasons. The economic impact of that on resorts and the state’s vital tourist industry is profound.

However, there’s more for Coloradans to worry about than the financial well-being of ski resorts and the number of powder days skiers may enjoy. Our mountains hold the headwaters of major rivers, including the Colorado River, that supply water to a large part of the country.

Decreased snowpack and earlier runoff because of the shifting climate will require significant changes to how water is managed and conserved in river basins across the West. Other impacts include serious threats to agricultural production as well as healthy forests and rivers.

So what can individuals and society do about this? We can’t make more snow fall or otherwise change the weather, but we can take steps to lessen our contribution to forces science tells us are factors in climate change.

Local entities such as the city of Fort Collins, Colorado State University and Platte River Power Authority are leading the way in climate action through programs and policies aimed at reducing the community’s emission of greenhouse gases.

The city’s Climate Action Plan is one of the most aggressive municipal plans in the country, if not the world. The plan calls for dramatic reductions in greenhouse gas emissions in the coming years, with the goal of the community being carbon neutral by 2050.

These conservation goals will not be easily achieved. Getting there will require the cooperative efforts of individuals and large organizations alike.

A good source of information on Fort Collins’ work on climate action may be found on the city website fcgov.com/climateaction. The site includes access to a Climate Action Plan dashboard, which gives a snapshot view of the community’s progress on meeting its goals.

The dashboard is a work in progress, with some informational entry points labeled “coming soon.” But it provides access to reports on the city’s activities, including an Innovation Summit planned Feb. 12 to brainstorm ways to achieve Climate Action Plan goals.

Some might say that given the worldwide scope of climate change and the tremendous challenges it presents, efforts by one community in Northern Colorado to address it are not likely to make any difference.

A less cynical way of looking at climate action is that steps taken at the local level could provide important momentum toward finding answers to a big problem.

And we are not alone. Communities and countries around the world are taking action in the face of climate change in hopes of ensuring a livable world for future generations.