Click the link to read the article on The Aspen Times website (Ryan Spencer). Here’s an excerpt:
February 6, 2026
At some long-term snow measurement sites, the winters of 1976-77 and 1980-81 were worse than this year, but not by much
Across Colorado, the state’s array of snow telemetry, or SNOTEL systems, have documented record-low snowpack conditions in numerous river basins and on a statewide level several times this winter. Since about Jan. 15, the snow telemetry system has had Colorado’s snowpack statewide sitting at the zeroth percentile, or the worst on record compared to the 30-year period from 1991 to 2020…
“We’ve been stuck for the most part in this warm and dry pattern across the West, going back really to the fall,” Colorado Climatologist Russ Schumacher said. “The snowpack numbers pretty much everywhere in Colorado are pretty ugly right now.”
But going back in Colorado’s history, 1976-77 and 1980-81 are two winters often considered “the worst” for snow. Schumacher noted that the state’s snow telemetry system only began to be built out in the 1980s, so comparison can be difficult. That’s where snow course measurements come in. Snow course measurements, which have been taken by hand about once a month at some sites in Colorado since the 1930s, allow for more direct comparisons to those historically bad snow years.
“That allows you to actually make some comparisons to those really, really awful years from the 76-77, 80-81 that the longtimers there in the mountains will remember,” he said. “This year’s not as bad as those, but in a lot of places, it’s the second or third worst when you include those years.”
At Independence Pass, one site where snow course measurements have been taken for well over half a century, this is the second-worst snowpack on record, according to the data. The only year when Independence Pass had a worse snowpack was the winter of 1976-77. At a snow course measurement site in Blue River in Summit County that has about 70 years of data, this year was also the second-lowest snowpack on record, behind only the winter of 1980-81…Yet, at a snow course measurement site at Berthoud Pass, this year is only the 12th worst on record. The worst February snowpack on record at Berthoud Pass was, once again, during the winter of 1980-81.
