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Colorado snowpack among lowest level in decades |
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Thursday, December 29, 2011 15:52 |
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By JOHN INGOLD, THE DENVER POST
BERTHOUD PASS — Colorado's snowpack — one of the most important sources of water for states in the American West — is lagging significantly below normal, according to the Natural Resources Conservation Service.
The first manual snow sampling of the season Thursday confirmed what automated sensors have been suggesting for weeks: that the water available in Colorado's snowpack is about a quarter below average.
Statewide, snowpack is 73 percent of normal. That ranks as the fourth-driest measurement in the last 30 years, according to the conservation service.
No year in the last three decades that has started this far below average has recovered to record normal snowpack by the start of spring, said Mike Gillespie, the snow survey supervisor for the service.
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