Colorado’s water storage reservoirs are about 85% full as the state faces a drought year that could be the worst in nearly a quarter century.
State officials are comparing this year with 2002, a year that would deliver one of the worst droughts on record. Whether this year will beat that mark isn’t clear yet.
Having water in storage is how Western states help offset the impacts of crippling droughts. This reservoir storage number, though below average, doesn’t worry water watchers too much right now, according to Nathan Elder, manager of water supply for Denver Water, the state’s largest water utility serving about 1.5 million people.
Denver’s storage system mirrors the statewide average at 82% full. But what worries Elder and others is what lies ahead. Snowpack and streamflow forecasts are so low that the utility is unlikely to be able to fill the reservoirs back up when snows melt this spring.
And that’s unusual. “We always fill,” he said.
In the American West, winter snows melt in the spring, filling reservoirs. Those storage pools help deliver water consistently through long summers and dry falls. Elder said Denver has enough water stored now to last roughly three years.
Northern Water’s storage reservoirs are similarly full, but that’s not causing much cheer. Northern provides water to hundreds of farms and nearly 1 million residents on the Front Range north of Denver.
“We’re in pretty good shape,” said Luke Shawcross, Northern’s water resources manager. “But the forecast is just dismal.”
At a meeting of the state’s Water Conditions Monitoring Committee meeting Thursday, Allie Mazurek, a climatologist with the Colorado Climate Center at CSU, reiterated what has dominated the headlines in recent weeks: December was the warmest on record.
There is little optimism that the state can shake off this record-breaking dry spell, according to Brian Domonkos, snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Services. The agency tracks snowpack in Colorado and other Western states.
Statewide snowpack sits at 57% of normal, Domonkos said. “It’s a record low.”
To get back to some level of normalcy the state would need to receive a series of snowstorms that would drop 145% of the state’s average amount of white flakes.
“And that is not likely,” he said.
Looking ahead, Denver Water and others have begun weekly “water shortage” meetings, with a decision likely in March about whether and what kind of new drought restrictions to impose, Elder said in an interview earlier this week.
“It’s not a good situation,” he said. “We’ve survived years like this in the past and made it through. But it’s a reminder that we live in an arid environment and we need to be conserving all the time.”
This weekend, more snow is expected, but it won’t be a drought-buster, said CSU’s Mazurek.
Still, she said, “at this point, I’ll take anything.”
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