Click the link to read the article on the Alamosa Citizen website (Chris Lopez):
THE cooler, cloudy days in May and early June have helped maintain the snowpack in the high country and extended the spring runoff on the Upper Rio Grande and Conejos River systems.
“It is difficult to tell if we are going to see a higher peak in the near future than what we have seen so far this spring, but it is definitely possible on some of the river systems,” Craig Cotten, Division 3 engineer for the Colorado Division of Water Resources told Alamosa Citizen this week.
“I am fairly certain that we will see a higher combined flow (Conejos plus Platoro storage) in the near future on the Conejos River than what we have seen before,” Cotten said.
Terrace Reservoir in Conejos County is close to being full now, and Platoro Reservoir will get close to full from runoff, Cotten said.
Neither reservoir has filled in the last 20 years, Cotten said. But this year is different, giving indication to the amount of water in the 2023 spring runoff.
The National Weather Service is forecasting a warmer trend ahead. There’s an expectation of an El Niño summer materializing, which would bring a warmer and dry July and August.