In a winter that will largely be remembered for an incredible lack of snow, Colorado is finally making up some ground this week thanks to a spring-like storm pattern.
Purgatory resort, about 30 minutes north of Durango, CO, is up over 1' of snow in the last 24 hours, and has recorded 26" in the last 7 days. That excludes today's snow. At the time of publication, the snow stake was up another 10". For comparison sake, they've had 78" the entire winter thus far. So, approximately one third of their entire season's snowfall has happened in the last 7 days.
They're not alone either.
Wolf Creek is also up over 2 feet in the last week. After today, that number likely climbs to more than 3 feet.
Snowpack is still at a record low, but the state is up 1.1" of liquid water equivalent from last week, climbing to 6.6" today. That's 0.5" below the prior record for today's date — 7.1". Snow-to-rain ratios are typically between 1:10 and 1:20 in Colorado. The higher and colder the environment, the higher the ratio. So if the state were to get 10" of snow today, it'd be reasonable to estimate at least 0.5" of liquid water added to the snowpack.
Statewide, on average, snowpack jumps from 10.6" to 11.4" from February 4th to February 11th according to SNOTEL data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture's National Water and Climate Center. Because the state gained 1.1" — snowpack has jumped from 52% of the median last week, to 58% of the median this week. Still very low, but a marked improvement.
The only basin in Colorado below 50% of median this week is the Arkansas.
The combination of today's snow, more on Friday, and then potentially more again in the middle of next week gives the state a real chance at climbing above the record low mark — at least temporarily. We need 7.8" of liquid by the 25th to meet the current record low, which is possible.
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