The good news is there is a lot of snow in the watershed. The
bad news reads the same way because large quantities of snow can
lead to heavy runoff and possible spring flooding.
Tracking snow levels is a job for the Natural Resources
Conservation Service. In the mid-1930s, the U.S. Congress mandated
the service, then the Soil Conservation Service, to measure and
track snowpack in the Western United States and Alaska. Until 1980
these measurements were taken manually.
Since then the service has installed, maintained and operated
the SNOTEL – for SNOwpack TELemetry – network consisting of more
than 660 automated snowpack and climate monitors in the Western
United States and Alaska. The data collected are used to create
snowpack and stream flow maps and forecast water
supplies.
Until recently, snow course and SNOTEL data had been used to
generate statewide snowpack maps on a monthly basis along with
statewide streamflow forecast maps.
In an e-mail message, Chris Pacheco, assistant snow survey
supervisor, stated that starting this month the data will be used
to provide maps for major basins in the state: Arkansas, Colorado,
Gunnison, San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan, South Platte,
Upper Rio Grande, Yampa and White and North Platte. Teller County
straddles two basins, the South Platte and Arkansas.
To see basin snowpack maps, which includes colored dots where
snow courses/SNOTEL sites in and around the basin, visit:
http://www.co.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/snow/
watershed/current/monthly/maps_graphs/get_basin_snow_map.html.
For basin streamflow forecast maps, which includes colored dots
where the forecast points are in the basin, visit:
http://www.co.nrcs.usda.gov/snow/fcst/watershed/current/monthly/maps_graphs/get_basin_fcst_map.html
Leon Kot, conservation service district conservationist at the
Woodland Park office, said in an e-mail that there are two
possibilities when it comes to predicting the weather for the
remainder of the snow season.
“The El Niño pattern-type climate thus far bringing more cold
and snow in parts of the state may be influenced by La Niña, which
should moderate the colder and snowier weather we have been
experiencing. If La Niña doesn’t develop, however, and we continue
getting ‘dumped on’ with our two snowiest months coming up – March
and April – then parts of the state are liable to have flooding
problems this spring.”
Snowpack is at 168 percent of long-term averages for the
Arkansas basin and 101 percent for the South Platte
basin.
719-687-3006 | nengelberg@ccnewspapers.com.