Water experts concerned by warm temps and low snow

Dust events and fires already active

Last week, the upper Gunnison Valley’s unbelievably sunny weather set a few records. According to data collected by Rocky Mountain Biological Laboratory business manager billy barr, March 22, 23 and 24 set record highs for Gothic, hitting the mid to upper 50s—one day blew the previous record out of the water by 12 degrees. barr was unavailable for comment (rumor has he actually went on vacation), but his weekly update stated, “This winter is now close to setting the record for the least amount of snow ever in a March.”

The winter as a whole is shaping up to be one of the lowest snowfall years since barr started collecting data 38 years ago. As of March 24, Gothic snowfall data ranked this winter 35th for snowfall and 37th for snowpack. Gothic has seen a total of 221 inches of snowfall this year (31 percent below average) and the snowpack on March 24 was 32.5 inches (46 percent below average).
barr’s data confirms what many suspected during a winter when Crested Butte Mountain Resort stopped reporting its cumulative snowfall online (they didn’t break the 200-inch mark): there’s just not a lot of snow out there. And that has local water and fire experts on their toes.
On Friday,  Frank Kugel, general manager of the Upper Gunnison River Water Conservancy District (UGRWCD), visited Long Lake to check on water levels in what few locals realize is a reservoir. The UGRWCD owns the water rights to the top 7.5 feet. Last fall, Kugel drew the reservoir down by 2.5 feet in anticipation of spring runoff—the most he’s ever done.
“Sink or swim, it’s my decision,” he said on Friday. So far, the reservoir is filling but not as quickly as he’d like. And across the District and the Gunnison Basin, the snowpack is at 70 percent of normal (measured as snow water equivalent). So far, this year’s snowpack is looking very similar to 2002.
“This year has a scary similarity to the big drought year of 2002,” Kugel said.
In anticipation of low runoff, the Taylor River has already been drawn down to a flow of 75 cfs to maintain water levels in Taylor Reservoir this spring and summer.
Kugel said he’s still had people in his office asking him to draw it down further, but that would create additional, ecological problems.
“Any [further] lowering of the flows raises concerns that it could de-water the shallow areas adjacent to the main channel, thus having an adverse affect on fish and eggs,” Kugel said.
The basin’s warm temperatures have also had an impact on inflows into Blue Mesa Reservoir; in recent days inflows have jumped to 1,056 cfs on March 26, from 500 to 600 cfs. According to Paul Davidson, resource manager for the Bureau of Reclamation, there’s a direct correlation between the temperature and the inflows.
“We’re having a little bit of an early snowmelt, though it’s not totally unusual,” Davidson said. So far, Blue Mesa’s inflows strike a resemblance to 2004, when the snowmelt started even earlier. Thanks to a few ups and downs in the weather that year, runoff didn’t start in earnest until May. “It’s hard to say what’s going to happen this year, of course, and none duplicate identically.”
But this year’s below average snowpack combined with the early melt is disconcerting. Right now, Davidson said, the reservoir is filled to 420,000 acre feet, which is 62 percent of average. It’s likely to decrease further, putting this year close to the bottom 10 percent of all runoff years.
“Under these forecasts, we will not fill Blue Mesa this year,” he said. Whereas the Bureau tries to fill the reservoir most years—last year the reservoir hit the 7519.3 foot mark, which was brimming—this year Davidson thinks the reservoir will be lucky to hit the 7,500 mark. So far, though, he’s not worried about meeting water calls or impacts on summer recreation.
“I think we’ll be pretty good in the basin as far as storage. We still have antecedent wet conditions from last year. Our base loads are pretty good, and it should be okay,” he said.
The weather forecast, however, does suggest more warm, dry weather—something the Bureau and state climatologists are monitoring closely. Nolan Doesken, Colorado State climatologist and weather researcher, said the state has at least another week of warmer than average and drier than average weather lies ahead. It’s a trend he doesn’t like.
“We’re usually on the last of the ascent curve in terms of snow accumulation, peaking—depending on where you are in state—either early to mid April or late April in higher elevations farther north in the state,” Doesken said.
As the warm temperatures continue, he’ll be paying attention to whether there’s a surge in the runoff or whether snow is simply disappearing. During the drought year of 2002, water experts overstated projected water supplies in part because snowmelt was lost to evapotranspiration instead of contributing to runoff.
“If a scenario unfolded where a lot of snow melted and we then had more late season precipitation… the perception is that it produces less runoff because vegetation has been exposed and greens up and consumes water. It starts the evapotranspiration cycle earlier,” Doesken said.
But so far he’s seeing a fair amount of optimism that the weather pattern will change and reservoirs will fill. It’s common for spring precipitation to flip-flop between wet and dry, and we could still see some wet weather. Still, there’s no question that the warm temps and dry weather are taking their toll. There have already been several wildfires across the state and dust storms in the Gunnison Valley.
On Monday, March 26, anyone looking down valley toward Gunnison likely saw a white haze in the air. It looked like smoke, but it was actually a sand and dust event. Chris Landry, executive director for the Center for Snow & Avalanche Studies, said that while it was a wide-ranging event, it did not leave a lot of material on the snow’s surface.
“We’ve had reports from as far as Aspen about it, and I suspect it went much further than that. As it happens I don’t think it was a very major deposition of material. The dust on the surface was actually deposited on March 18,” Landry said.
Monday’s dust event was the 6th of the season, though Landry has not noticed anything unusual in the number or timing of the events. The region typically sees more dust in the spring than mid-winter, and several of this spring’s recorded events were minor. And while Monday’s event originated somewhere on the Colorado Plateau, it’s difficult to pinpoint the exact location.
“They do tend to entrain dust from a long distance, all the way along as long as there is dust available. So there is dust contributed from over long distances in these storms,” Landry said.
While dust hung over the Valley, elsewhere in the state fires burned. The Colorado Division of Emergency Management warned of extreme fire danger across the state after more than a dozen fires broke out—including a forest fire that burned more than 3,000 acres in Jefferson County near the U.S. Highway 285 corridor, and an 814-acre grass fire that started in Saguache County and spread into Gunnison County.
According to Gunnison fire marshal Dennis Spritzer, a controlled burn grew out of control, burning primarily grasses and a hayfield. It was contained the same day, but extremely high winds and low humidity contributed to its size.
“It’s especially dry because the grasses are still dormant. There’s a lot of fire danger out there right now,” Spritzer said.
It’s fairly typical to see grassfires this time of year, but Doesken says the Jefferson County fire, which burned 15 to 25 structures and left one person dead, shows that even forests are vulnerable this year.
“The area that had the fire had good snow, but of course it only takes a few weeks of abnormally dry, windy, warm weather to take a forest and convert it from being wet to ready to carry a fire,” Doesken said. “What it tells us for the forests of Colorado as a whole is that any time the snow melts early, which is the path we’re currently on, the forest has the opportunity to dry out early, which gives the potential for a longer fire season and perhaps more severe.”
The take-home message is one of caution. Gunnison County residents planning to set their own controlled fires need to call Gunnison Communications at 641-8201 before doing so. And burning on red flag days, when factors like wind increase fire danger, is prohibited.