The 2019 winter was officially a winner! The most encouraging sight was seeing the drinking water reservoirs cascading over their spillways! The low elevation snow-melt topped off all of the uptown reservoirs, which is pretty incredible considering that Lake Hatcher was 9 feet down, and Steven's Reservoir was 14 feet down last fall! After a fabulous February at the Upper San Juan SNOTEL site (12.5 inches of water), March matched the moisture and raised it (13.9 inches of wa

The 2019 water year is off to a great start! Two days into the new water year, moisture from Hurricane Rosa streamed into the Southern San Juan Mountains resurrecting the San Juan River from near record low flow. The steady rain generated more than a 10x increase in streamflow in the San Juan River last week. And a decent moisture supply has continued to drift our way. The best news is the high mountains are already blanketed under a layer of foreign-looking snow! October

As the summer sizzled, the monsoon fizzled, and the streamflow dwindled. The tubing opportunities decreased and now the all the trout are deceased. After a strong start to the monsoon season in early July, high pressure dominated and diverted moisture around the Southern San Juans throughout August, which is typically our rainiest month. Since mountain precipitation generally switches over to snow in fall, and that snow usually doesn't melt until the spring of the next year,

It's amazing how much a drought can make you appreciate the rain! Ironically, it's the lack of rain in May and June that sets the stage for rain in July! So what controls the moisture tap, why doesn't the tap turn on earlier, and what can kink the hose mid-summer? First, here's an early season monsoon summary. Over the last 2 weeks, the South San Juans have been blessed by consistent monsoon-fed thunderstorms. Dew point values have hovered well above average thanks to a cons

Peak spring runoff in the the San Juan River occurred in Pagosa Springs on May 10th at 11:45 PM at 1330 cfs! Even though the Upper San Juan Snotel Site ran out of snow on April 30th, the late spring snow storm on May 2nd slowed the melt, rejuvenated the snowpack, and extended the peak runoff event into May instead of April. Although 1330 cfs is barely over 50% of normal, it's about 4.5 times higher than the dismal 2002 peak spring runoff value of 296 cfs. The 2018 peak sprin

Wondering how the 2018 snowpack stacks up against recent years with big summer wildfires? And when and how much streamflow will our meager snowpack generate in the San Juan River this spring? The Upper San Juan SNOTEL site ran out of snow this week on 4/30/18. May 1st is a good date to compare snowpack to the historical record because snow measurements extend back to 1936. Based upon the site's 82-year history, the site has only been out of snow before May 1st one other ti

Wondering how the 2018 snowpack stacks up against recent years with big summer wildfires? And when and how much streamflow will our meager snowpack generate in the San Juan River this spring? Despite last week's snowstorm, which added 0.2 inches of water to the Upper San Juan SNOTEL site, the snowpack has continued to plummet, which probably solidified this year's rank as the 2nd lowest since 1979. There is only 5.1 inches of water left in the snowpack, which is 17% of norm

Wondering how the 2018 snowpack stacks up against the worst 4 years in recent history? And when and how much streamflow will our meager snowpack generate in the San Juan River this spring? If you're a kayaker, you might want to drag your boat out mid-week and you might catch some fleeting high water! The 2018 winter started out similar to the dry winters of 1990, 1996, and 2000. Unfortunately, March was a bust, and so far April has not panned out. As a result, we've falle

If you're wondering about the timing and magnitude of this year's spring runoff, I have a prediction for you. Back in 2013, I taught my students how to predict these two important values using historical hydrology records, and through that process, they learned how a boring series of numbers, graphs, and equations can be used to answer a relevant question of great consequence. Since we developed this snow-flow model, it's been fun to test it's prediction each year. The San