Click the link to read the article on the Summit Daily website (Ryan Spencer). Here’s an excerpt:
December 27, 2025
Leadville, Breckenridge, Keystone and Aspen all experienced small amounts of rain on Christmas Day, according to the National Weather Service
Across Colorado, this Christmas holiday was not particularly white, as many mountain towns saw small amounts of rain, record-high temperatures and a record-low snowpack. As of Dec. 25, Colorado’s statewide snowpack stood at just 3.2 inches of snow-water equivalent and had reached the zeroth percentile, or its lowest point in at least the past 30 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s snowpack telemetry, or SNOTEL, system.
“The winter of 1976-77 is generally thought to be the worst snow year in our mountains but the SNOTEL network wasn’t built out yet at that point, so it’s hard to make direct comparisons,” Colorado Climatologist Russ Schumacher said. “But the fact that we’re even in the same conversation with that winter is not good news.”
Out of the 94 SNOTEL stations in Colorado with at least 20 years of data, 22 of them were at a record-low snowpack on Christmas Day, and 10 were at their second-lowest snowpack on record, Schumacher said. He noted that warm temperatures and a lack of storms throughout December has not helped the state’s snowpack. Temperatures over the Christmas holiday were approximately 15 to 25 degrees above normal across the mountains, National Weather Service Grand Junction Office meteorologist Braeden Winters said Friday. The streak of unseasonably warm weather began toward the beginning of December and continued to get warmer through the holiday period…Rather than white, fluffy flakes for Christmas, Colorado’s mountain towns — including Leadville, at 10,154 feet, Breckenridge at 9,600, Keystone at 9,280 feet and Aspen at 7,891 feet — experienced light rain and mixed precipitation on Thursday.