If you’ve been trying to imagine just how dry Colorado is this year, how bad the snowpack is, how high the fire danger is, I offer this photo from The Colorado Sun:
This was the Telluride ski area two days ago, March 25. Telluride is ranked as one of the state’s top ski areas, often in the top five, but it has announced an April 5 closing this year. Several of the state’s ski resorts have announced their closings in the next few weeks, whereas normal closings are in late April or even May for the higher resorts.
The mountain snowpack is a primary water source for the rest of the state and this morning it’s reportedly just 30% of median. Worse, because of the record warmth, it’s disappearing much faster than usual.
Greater Denver is in a “severe drought” and many municipalities have already enacted Stage One water restrictions. That means residents are not to turn on outdoor irrigation systems until May, and then can only water on two assigned days a week instead of three. The rules will be enforced by, first, a warning. A second offense will incur a fine. And if those fail, the city will simply shut off the home’s water altogether. Sadly, neighbors are also being encouraged to report violators.
The photo in the header is a screenshot from the summit of Pikes Peak (14,115 ft) this morning. Certainly not the amount of snow normally there in March.
See also Best webcams from Rocky Mountain NP to Pikes Peak, although cloud cover, smoke from Nebraska fires, and dust from our eastern plains are blanketing much of northern Colorado this morning. At least the result is cooler temperatures, now in the 40s instead of the 80s.
That’s scary dry. We’ve been drier than normal in here northern Nevada too.
The resulting fire danger has the whole state on edge.
yikes!
The mountain economy suffers too. Fewer skiers means less work, fewer jobs for local seasonal workers, who are already up there living with inflated housing prices. It’a bad for everybody.
Everyone loses in this situation
So true.
Those photos are so telling. It’s easy to imagine that we will be facing some kind of trouble in the next few months, even if we get some precipitation, whether it’s wildfires or wholesale dying off of trees, including ponderosa.
This weather, like you say, is affecting many workers. My cat sitter lost business over the winter because people weren’t taking ski trips.
Remarkably, my pear and redbud trees are blooming normally, if early. But my two aspens, that don’t like living in the city in the first place, look dead. The lawn seems determined to green up. Nice, but I have no idea what kind of grass it is. But I’d rather the aspens made it. It means a lot to me to have them, and It will cost a small fortune to have them removed. Nor will I likely be able to replace trees that size in my lifetime.
I have a very old cottonwood tree (more than 30 years old), and I would be devastated to lose that. Like your aspens, it would never grow here again in a drought.
Love the cottonwoods. When you’re crossing the plains, they tell you where the water is. Always reasssuring to see them.