From NOAA:

In the first three months of 2019, there were two weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the U.S. These events included a severe storm event across the Southeast, Ohio Valley and Northeast, and one flooding event in the central U.S., which is still ongoing.

During March, the average contiguous U.S. temperature was 40.68°F, 0.82°F below the 20th-century average. This ranked in the middle third of the 125-year period of record. The year-to-date (January–March) average contiguous U.S. temperature was 35.03°F, 0.12°F below average, ranking among the middle third of the record. This was the coldest start to a year since 2014. The March precipitation total for the contiguous U.S. was 2.20 inches, 0.31 inch below average, and ranked in the driest third of the 125-year period of record. The year-to-date precipitation total was 8.03 inches, 1.07 inch above average, tying with 1949 as the 12th wettest January–March period on record.

This monthly summary from NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information is part of the suite of climate services NOAA provides to government, business, academia and the public to support informed decision-making.

March Temperature

Below-average temperatures were observed in the Northwest, the Great Plains and across portions of the Mississippi and Ohio River valleys. A small pocket of record-cold temperatures was evident across a portion of Washington state.

Arizona and New Mexico had above-average temperatures during March, while most of the contiguous U.S. experienced near-average temperatures for the month.

The Alaska March temperature was 26.7°F, 15.9°F above the long-term average. This was the warmest March in the 95-year period of record for the state and exceeded the previous warmest March in 1965 by more than 3°F. All long-term climate stations north of the Alaska Range and Bristol Bay had their warmest March on record. Kotzebue’s average March temperature was warm enough to be among its 10 warmest Aprils on record.

March Precipitation

During mid-March, a “bomb cyclone” developed across the central U.S. bringing snow, blizzard conditions, heavy rainfall and above-freezing temperatures across parts of the interior U.S., which already had significant snowpack on the ground. This resulted in widespread flash flooding due to the combination of new rainfall, rapidly melting snow and frozen ground. A State of Emergency was declared for parts of Nebraska, Iowa, South Dakota and Wisconsin as the Missouri, Platte and Mississippi rivers breached their banks.

Above-average precipitation was observed across parts of the West, central Rockies and into the central Plains and middle Mississippi Valley. This precipitation exacerbated the flooding that occurred during the latter half of March in the central U.S. Flooding along these major rivers and tributaries is anticipated to continue well into April.

Below-average precipitation was observed across the Northwest, South, Southeast and East Coast. Washington and Montana had one of their 10 driest Marchs on record.

According to the April 2 U.S. Drought Monitor report, 6 percent of the contiguous U.S. was in drought, down from 12 percent at the end of February and is one of the smallest contiguous U.S. drought footprints on record. Drought conditions continued to improve across much of the West and intensified across parts of Washington, Texas and the Southeast.

January–March (Year-to-Date) Temperature

Above-average temperatures were primarily observed across the Southeast and Atlantic Coast. Florida had an average January–March temperature that ranked among its 10 warmest on record. Near-average conditions stretched from the southern Plains to the Northeast and across much of the West. Below-average temperatures were present across the northern and central Plains and parts of the West.

The Alaska January–March temperature was 16.6°F, 10.7°F above the long-term average, the third warmest on record for the state. Record temperatures were observed across most of the state with much-above-average temperatures occurring across the Aleutians and the panhandle.

January–March (Year-to-Date) Precipitation

Below-average precipitation was observed across the South and parts of the Southeast. Washington ranked 10th driest for the year-to-date period. Above-average precipitation stretched from coast-to-coast with many states having one of their 10 wettest January–March periods on record; Colorado was fourth wettest, Tennessee and Utah were fifth wettest and Nevada sixth wettest.Below-average precipitation was observed across the South and parts of the Southeast. Washington ranked 10th driest for the year-to-date period. Above-average precipitation stretched from coast-to-coast with many states having one of their 10 wettest January–March periods on record; Colorado was fourth wettest, Tennessee and Utah were fifth wettest and Nevada sixth wettest.

Billion Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters

In February 2019, widespread damage resulted from severe weather and flooding in the South (MS, AL, TN) and high winds across Ohio Valley (IL, IN, OH) and Northeastern states (CT, MD, MA, NJ, NY, PA, VA, WV).

Historic Midwest flooding, which began in March and is currently ongoing, inundated millions of acres of agriculture, numerous cities and towns and caused widespread damage to roads, bridges, levees and dams. The states most affected include Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, South Dakota, Minnesota and Wisconsin.

In April 2019, NCEI added three historical weather and climate events. The U.S. has now sustained 246 weather and climate disasters since 1980 where overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion (based on Consumer Price Index adjustment to 2019). The total cost of these 246 events exceeds $1.6 trillion.

From The Glenwood Springs Post Independent (Scott Condon):

[Tim Miller] envisions Ruedi Reservoir filling during the first half of July, likely around July 4. The reclamation bureau and two other agencies have forecast the amount of water flowing into the reservoir this year at 120 percent to 140 percent of average for April through July.

Miller said one thing that stands out this year is the lower elevation snowpack is so big in the Fryingpan Valley. The Kiln snow telemetry site, at 9,600 feet in elevation, was at 147 percent of median on Thursday.

The Ivanhoe Lake site, at 10,400 feet, was at 168 percent of median. The last comparable snowpacks were in 2011, when winter wouldn’t end.

This year, Ruedi Reservoir is lower than usual for this time of year in the aftermath of the drought of 2018. Extra water was required for fighting the Lake Christine Fire and late-season irrigation.

The reservoir was at about 55 percent full. While that isn’t a historically low level, it is 10,000 acre feet lower than at this point last year and at this point in 2011, Miller said. Having the extra space compared to the big runoff year of 2011 is reassuring, he said.

Miller said he will keep the reservoir level hovering about where it is in anticipation of runoff starting soon.

The outlook for the reservoir is good for boaters because of the high probability it will fill right around July 4, Miller said.

The outlook for anglers on the lower Fryingpan River is less certain. Miller said the outflows from the reservoir will likely be higher from later this spring through July than they were last year. The flows in late summer and into fall will depend on the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s plan for managing the Colorado River near Grand Junction for endangered fish species. Water from Ruedi Reservoir is often used to increase levels on the Colorado River.

The ideal situation this spring and summer would be slow, steady melting of the snowpack, producing a consistent inflow to the reservoir, according to Miller. But he knows Mother Nature will likely throw some curves.

“We never get that” ideal situation, he said.

From The High Country News (Adam M. Sowards):

Reckoning with History is an ongoing series that seeks to understand the legacies of the past and to put the West’s present moment in perspective.

The Green New Deal and its proponents aim to tackle the intertwined issues of social and environmental justice in our age of anthropogenic climate change. To accomplish this, they believe they must deploy the federal government, since it is the only institution large enough to coordinate and invest in the necessary policies. But the idea of expanding the role of government has attracted critics, who rail against socialism. To historians, this sounds familiar.

This is not the first time socialism, new deals and the environment have intersected. During the catastrophe of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the federal government similarly attempted to ameliorate social and environmental harms by investing in people and places through the New Deal. Then, as now, critics dismissed it as socialism.

The “socialist” sobriquet stokes ideological fires but douses historical understanding. One prominent example — Bob Marshall’s argument for nationalizing forests during the 1930s — reveals how socialist solutions emerge from specific contexts and problems, not ideological bunkers. In Marshall’s case, the dire state of private timberlands in the early 20th century prompted his call for reform. When massive problems develop, cross jurisdictional lines and are associated with market failures, big government responses can seem like the only possible solution.

BY THE EARLY 20TH CENTURY, hundreds of years of unregulated cutting had ravaged the nation’s forests, and Americans faced a crisis that demanded intervention. “Rocks and mountains may be ageless, but men and society are emphatically of the present, and they cannot wait for the slow process of nature to retrieve the catastrophe caused by their unthinking destructiveness,” wrote Marshall, a forester for federal agencies throughout his career, a co-founder of The Wilderness Society and the person for whom Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness Area is named.

A massive evaluation of American forestry conducted by the Forest Service in 1932 both shaped and reflected Marshall’s views. Appearing the next year, A National Plan for American Forestry, known as the Copeland Report, showed that private forests were failing. (The majority of the nation’s timber came from privately held forests, just as it does today.) They burned more often, were not harvested to provide a “continual crop of timber,” failed to protect watersheds and offered few recreational opportunities compared to public forests. They caused social problems, too, with lumber workers doing dangerous, transient jobs that resulted in mangled bodies and left hollowed-out towns behind. As Marshall saw it, “The private owner is thus responsible for almost every serious forest problem.”

So, Marshall argued that American timberlands should be publicly owned. In 1933, four years into the Depression and during the first year of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s presidency, Marshall published The People’s Forests, his own radical extension of the Copeland Report, which advocated for public ownership of practically all commercial forests in America. He was writing amid an economic catastrophe mirrored in the nation’s wild and rural landscapes, where bankrupted farmers, out-of-work loggers and drought-driven refugees were common, not unlike today.

Throughout The People’s Forests, Marshall showed how private ownership, even when tempered by public regulation, fell short; only full public ownership could keep forests and communities healthy. He united a biological and social vision for forestry, one where human happiness and decent livelihoods might sprout from robust forests. In articulating that vision, he made his socialist case plain: “The fundamental advantage of public ownership of forests over private ownership is that in the former social welfare is substituted for private gain as the major objective of management.” Much the way today’s Green New Deal seeks to redress both economic and environmental impoverishment, Marshall sought to replace private profit with a broader public spiritedness that aimed for long-term stability, ending cut-and-run practices and ultimately strengthening communities.

Marshall’s call for reforms reflected an accelerating trend of expanding public lands in the 1930s, when the federal government acquired millions of acres for national parks, national forests and wildlife refuges. Newly passed laws, like the Migratory Bird Hunting Stamp Act (1934) and the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act (1937), helped the government fund refuges, acquire property for conservation and bail out private owners who lived on wrecked lands. Starting around the same time and lasting until the 1950s, Forest Service administrators advocated for public regulation of logging on private land, principally citing concerns about declining timber production and the threat of fire on poorly managed parcels. Though ultimately unsuccessful, those efforts illustrated a push to establish stability amid unsettling crisis, a goal Marshall shared.

When capitalism stumbles badly, producing degraded lands and gaping inequalities, socialistic solutions rise in popularity, because their incentives are not tied to profits. Marshall’s closing line argues for that perspective: “The time has come when we must discard the unsocial view that our woods are the lumbermen’s and substitute the broader ideal that every acre of woodland in the country is rightly a part of the people’s forests.” Shouting “socialist” as an epithet is a tired strategy, a failure to reckon with specific contexts and problems, whether it’s damaged timberlands in the 1930s or rising sea levels today. The People’s Forests and the Green New Deal highlight the ways social and environmental harms are woven together, a reminder that real solutions require a mutual untangling, and that — despite American history and politics’ suspicion of true socialism — government necessarily holds many of the threads.

Adam M. Sowards is an environmental historian, professor and writer. He lives in Pullman, Washington. Email High Country News at editor@hcn.org.

Like many Westerners, giant sequoias came recently from farther east. Of course, “recent” is a relative term. “You’re talking millions of years (ago),” William Libby said. The retired University of California, Berkeley, plant geneticist has been studying the West Coast’s towering trees for more than half a century. Needing cooler, wetter climates, the tree species arrived at their current locations some 4,500 years ago — about two generations. “They left behind all kinds of Eastern species that did not make it with them, and encountered all kinds of new things in their environment,” Libby said. Today, sequoias grow on the slopes of California’s Sierra Nevada.

In Deso-Gray, on the Green River. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

Aspen trees, in the upper Roaring Fork River basin. Photo: Brent Gardner-Smith/Aspen Journalism

Aspen trees in autumn. Photo: Bob West via the Colorado State Forest Service.

Iron Fen. Photo credit from report “A Preliminary Evaluation of Seasonal Water Levels Necessary to Sustain Mount Emmons Fen: Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison National Forests,” David J. Cooper, Ph.D, December 2003.

“Bergen Park” was painted by John Frederick Kensett circa 1870. The painting illustrates the open, spatially-variable structure of a ponderosa pine stand with an open understory typical of some Front Range forests at that time. (Bergen Park, at an elevation of 7800 ft., is located near Evergreen, CO, 25 miles west of Denver.) via Rocky Mountain Research Station

Howard Fork via RestorationTrust.org

From The Crested Butte News (Cayla Vidmar):

Miracle March, local reservoirs expected to be near full this summer

The heavy March storm cycles helped push the area out of a long-standing drought.

…Frank Kugel, general manager for the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (UGRWCD), stated Tuesday that Gunnison County is officially no longer in a drought, according to the Colorado drought monitor.

“The March storms were definitely very significant and in certain areas, in the first eight days of March we had a full month’s worth of precipitation,” said Kugel. “It was a great storm system for us, and has been very encouraging.”

The UGRWCD averages the five SNOTEL (Snowpack Telemetry) sites, which measures snowpack across the Upper Gunnison Basin. Kugel says, “We’re currently showing 150 percent of normal [snowpack] for this time of year.”

With the extended drought, some were concerned about the prospect of Blue Mesa refilling, even after a good snow year. But Kugel says they’re expecting the reservoir to fill to approximately seven-eighths of capacity, which, he says “is great considering it’s currently at 30 percent capacity.”

Kugel says Taylor Reservoir is expected to fill this year…

…being out of the drought is great news to go into the off-season. Look for a spectacular wildflower season this summer.

Here’s the release from the NRCS (Brian Domonkos):

Snow accumulations between March 1 and March 15 have been the highlight of this winter coming in at near record levels across much of the state. At the end of March, snowpack across the state of Colorado is 136 percent of median up 24 percent from last month. The combined San Miguel, Dolores, Animas & San Juan Basins posted the largest gain of 35 percent followed by the Upper Rio Grande, Gunnison and Arkansas at 30, 32 and 25 percent respectively. Basin-wide snowpack improvements elsewhere in Colorado were slightly more modest. These improvements through March pushed snowpack past a significant milestone, “All individual major basins in the state are now above the typical annual snowpack peak, which often leads to a favorable water supply in each basin,” notes Brian Domonkos, Colorado Snow Survey Supervisor with the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

March snowpack improvements showcase the impressive changes but equally noteworthy are current snowpack totals for the water year beginning on October 1. Snowpack observation points within the San Miguel, Dolores, Animas & San Juan combined basins indicate 157 percent of median, while snowpack in the Gunnison, Arkansas, Rio Grande, and Colorado indicate 150, 149, 145 and 130 percent of median respectively. “Current snowpack values in some individual basins on April 1, 2019 translate to nearly double or triple levels seen during this same time last year,” comments Domonkos. These improvements over last year are welcomed in restoring water supplies significantly depleted after last year’s drought.

Similar to snowpack March precipitation was particularly impressive which amounted to 183 percent of average for the state. Water year to date precipitation across the state is now 123 percent of average. Precipitation totals in the Gunnison and combined southwest basins are no less impressive each at 133 percent of average for the water year to date. By the numbers March is typically the second wettest month of the year in Colorado meaning accumulations this March were particularly impactful.

While reservoir storage levels across the state have seen little increase in recent months current snowpack levels are poised to increase storage levels across much of the state as the snow begins to melt. Most volumetric streamflow forecasts into spring and summer range from 100 to 150 percent of normal. Basins that have the highest forecasts, namely in Southern Colorado, are those that had the least streamflow last year, which should be particularly beneficial for water supply conditions in those areas.

For more detailed information about April 1 mountain snowpack refer to the April 1, 2019 Colorado Water Supply Outlook Report. For the most up to date information about Colorado snowpack and water supply related information, refer to the Colorado Snow Survey website.

Click here to read the report. What a great snow accumulation season for Colorado (so far). Here’s the summary:

Click on a thumbnail graphic below to view a gallery of drought data from the US Drought Monitor.

US Drought Monitor April 2, 2019.

West Drought Monitor April 2, 2019.

Colorado Drought Monitor April 2, 2019.

Click here to go to the US Drought Monitor website. Here’s an excerpt:

Summary

Large portions of the continental United States remained free of drought or abnormal dryness this week. The Northeast was completely free of drought or abnormal dryness, as was the Midwest, where significant river flooding concerns continued. Short-term dryness continued in parts of central and western Texas, with some moderate and severe drought shifting northward, while widespread rain in southern Texas led to improvements in conditions there. Short-term precipitation deficits in southern Alabama, southern Georgia, southern Louisiana, the Florida Panhandle, and South Carolina led to the expansion of abnormal dryness and moderate drought in some of these areas. Moderate drought was also expanded in parts of north-central Washington in response to short-term precipitation deficits there. Another dry week in Hawaii led to degradation in drought conditions on most of the islands…

High Plains

Widespread precipitation fell across much of Nebraska and eastern Kansas this week while most of the rest of the region experienced drier weather. On the whole, temperatures were relatively close to normal in the region, with a cold pocket in northwestern Nebraska and a few warmer areas showing up in the western Dakotas. Aside from a reduction in abnormal dryness around Colorado Springs in response to decreasing long-term precipitation deficits, no changes were made to the map this week east of the Continental Divide, and the High Plains remained nearly devoid of drought or abnormal dryness…

West

Widespread precipitation affected northern California, western Oregon, and the northern Sierra Nevada this week. Precipitation also fell in the mountains north of the Snake River Valley in Idaho, southwestern Montana, northern Utah, and central Wyoming. Relatively warm conditions prevailed along the Pacific Coast, and in southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico. Elsewhere, temperatures were generally near normal. Moderate drought was expanded in parts of north-central Washington where precipitation deficits over the last 1-3 months led to the development of moderate drought. Low to very low snow water equivalent is also evident in the Idaho Panhandle and in northwestern Montana, and while this has not yet developed into moderate drought, abnormally dry conditions continue here. Abnormal dryness was reduced in the San Luis Valley in Colorado, where long-term precipitation deficits continued to abate…

South

Aside from southern Texas and northeastern Oklahoma, much of the region was dry over the past week. Temperatures were below normal in most of the region, except for southwestern Texas and the western Texas Panhandle. Moderate drought was added this week in southwestern Louisiana and in the Baton Rouge area because of short-term precipitation deficits over the past few months. Very dry conditions over the past 3 months led to moderate drought expanding into the Austin, Texas, area. Severe drought shifted northward in parts of south-central Texas in response to changes in short-term precipitation deficits there. After a widespread half-inch or more of precipitation this past week, short-term precipitation shortages were alleviated enough for widespread improvement in drought conditions in southern Texas. Elsewhere, some short-term dryness was taking place in Arkansas and Tennessee, but this was outweighed by longer-term precipitation surpluses…

Looking Ahead

Widespread precipitation is forecast this week from the Central Plains eastward through the East Coast. The heaviest amounts are forecast in eastern Texas and Arkansas and in the central Gulf Coast states. Precipitation is also forecast in the Sierra Nevada, northwestern California, western Washington and Oregon, and mountainous areas of Wyoming, northern Utah, and Idaho. Widespread above-normal temperatures are forecast over the next week, particularly in the central continental United States.

Click here to read the current assessment. Click here to go to the NIDIS website hosted by the Colorado Climate Center.

Here’s a report from Marshall Shepherd that’s running on the Forbes website. Click through and read the whole thing. Here’s an excerpt:

A recent piece by Dennis Mersereau in Forbes described how [the administration’s] proposed budget (likely “dead on arrival” in Congress) would result in mass layoffs of National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists. On the Forbes Facebook page, I saw cliche and misinformed comments like “Good, meteorologists are always wrong anyhow.” Such statements are rooted in misperceptions based on experiences, lack of math-statistical literacy, and knee-jerk reactions. The reality is that weather forecasts are quite good when consumed with proper perspective. I pose the following question: If the weather forecast called for 70 degrees F in two days and it ended up being 68 degrees F, will people say the forecast was wrong? The answer is probably like many relationships. It’s complicated. Meteorologists seem to be held to a different standard than other professions that predict the future.

In response to the question posed, some people will say it was right and others will say it is wrong. How do meteorologists compare to other professions that try to predict the future like investors, economists, sports analysts, doctors, and political pundits? If an investor could pick the best performing stocks 80 to 90 percent of the time, would you likely give her your business? What if your doctor said that there was a 90% chance that your symptoms will worsen unless you take a certain medication, are you likely to fill the prescription? There is probably someone reading this and overanalyzing the questions. However, most people probably said “yes” to both questions. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Scijinks website is a good place to start:

“A seven-day forecast can accurately predict the weather about 80 percent of the time and a five-day forecast can accurately predict the weather approximately 90 percent of the time. However, a 10-day—or longer—forecast is only right about half the time.”

These percentages are even higher within 2 to 3 days. Jason Samenow and Angela Fritz wrote in the Washington Post Capital Weather Gang:

“A one-day temperature forecast is now typically accurate within about two to 2.5 degrees, according to National Weather Service data. In other words, when you see a forecast high of 82, most of the time the actual high will be between 80 and 85.”

[…]

Nate Silver’s excellent essay, “The Weatherman Is Not a Moron,” was published a few years ago in the New York Times. He clearly laid out that weather forecasting is an area that has seen tremendous strides in recent decades. He writes,

“Still, most people take their forecasts for granted. Like a baseball umpire, a weather forecaster rarely gets credit for getting the call right….Six years earlier, the National Weather Service also made a nearly perfect forecast of Hurricane Katrina, anticipating its exact landfall almost 60 hours in advance.”

From The Denver Post (Jackson Barnett):

Colorado has suffered from drought that has parched much of the state, hitting the Four Corners area especially hard, since late 2017.

While the snowfall that pounded Colorado’s mountains in recent weeks has helped break the near-term drought, water experts aren’t declaring an end to the troubling long-term trend of low water levels as the state’s climate shifts to greater aridity.

“Snowpack is only one part of the mosaic of the climate in Colorado,” said Jim Pokrandt, community affairs director for the Colorado River District.

In Colorado, snowpack forms a strong pillar of water storage, but spring rains and summer monsoons will still be required to keep this year’s water at a needed high. If trends continue, 2019 will be only the fifth year the state’s water-storage level is at or above average since 2000, Pokrandt said.

“It is hard to tell if we are out of the long-term drought or still in the new normal,” he said.

At the beginning of 2019, much of Colorado was still covered in shades of red on the map created by the U.S. Drought Monitor, a database of drought conditions maintained by the University of Nebraska Lincoln. The dry soil hurt many farms and ranchers in the west and southwest of the state, where the red was its deepest shade, denoting the harshest drought.

With the large snow dumps this winter and early spring, much of the state is back to normal, with some “abnormally dry” and “moderate drought” conditions holding on to patches of the southwest, according to the drought monitor’s most recent update.

Farmers are getting their hopes up that the snowpack will nourish dry soil and return their falling crop yields to a more healthy return.

“After a year of extreme drought across the state, the above-normal snowpack is extremely exciting for farmers and ranchers around Colorado,” said Don Shawcroft, president of Colorado Farm Bureau. “However, recovery will mean much more. Low commodity prices, natural disasters and other pressures have made this a really difficult time for agriculture.”

In urban Colorado along the Front Range, the drought was less harsh. In February, Denver hit its 25th month of below-average precipitation. Now snowpack in Denver’s water collection system is at 145 percent of normal. It is the most snowpack Denver has seen this time of year in more than 20 years, said Jose Salas, a Denver Water spokesman…

“Mother Nature gets first dibs on the water in the snow, with the soil soaking up moisture like a sponge,” Salas said. Only after the soil is saturated with runoff does the snowmelt flow into streams and reservoirs.

The McPhee Reservoir on the Dolores River north of Cortez is expected to fill and have an extended period of managed release, said general manager Mike Preston.

The snowfall totals came as a surprise to those who work with Preston at the Dolores Water Conservancy District. Usually, the bulk of their snow accumulation that feeds the river falls in December and January. By mid-February, snow totals were just above average. Then came March.

Storm after storm battered the area, piling up historic levels of snow. The above-average year comes after nearly two decades of sustained dry spells.

“Since about 2000 has been one of the worst periods on record,” Preston said. “But you still have good years.”

Click on a thumbnail graphic below to view a gallery of snowpack data from the NRCS.

Colorado Statewide basin-filled map April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Statewide Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

South Platte River Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

San Miguel, Colorado, Animas, and San Juan Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Arkansas River Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Upper Colorado River Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Laramie and North Platte Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Gunnison River Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Yampa and White Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Upper Rio Grande River Basin High/Low graph April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

And here’s the Westwide basin-filled map for April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

And just for grins here’s a gallery of early April snowpack maps from the NRCS.

Colorado Statewide basin-filled map April 1, 2019 via the NRCS.

Statewide snowpack April 3, 2018 via the NRCS.

Statewide snowpack basin-filled map April 4, 2017 via the NRCS.

Statewide snowpack map April 10, 2016 via the NRCS.

Statewide snowpack map Basin High/Low Graph April 1, 2015 via the NRCS

Statewide snowpack April 1, 2014 via the NRCS

Statewide snowpack April 1, 2013 via the NRCS

Statewide snowpack April 2, 2012 via the NRCS

Colorado snowpack basin-filled map April 3, 2011 via the NRCS.

Colorado snowpack basin-filled map April 1, 2010 via the NRCS.