If you told me in February that we wouldn't need storage water by mid May I would have laughed. In a normal year our need for our storage water rights doesn't occur until June. We are getting close to that date which provides a little more relief.
This spring has been a cool and wet spring which has provided some great relief for our water situation. Not everything is great as this is one of the worst snow pack recordings in our history. But the weather has reduced the need for demands on Bear Creek which allow us to benefit from our river flow rights this long into the spring.
Once Mother Nature turns off the water and turns up the heat a different picture will be painted for sure. Pictured below is our current flows for Bear Creek.
This spring has been a cool and wet spring which has provided some great relief for our water situation. Not everything is great as this is one of the worst snow pack recordings in our history. But the weather has reduced the need for demands on Bear Creek which allow us to benefit from our river flow rights this long into the spring.
Once Mother Nature turns off the water and turns up the heat a different picture will be painted for sure. Pictured below is our current flows for Bear Creek.
We are hovering between 100-120 cfs lower than normal. That is a huge difference. When we drop below 8 or 10 cfs that is when our Warrior Rights (approximately 2/3rds of our water source) begin to produce little to no results. When this happens we are left with only watering short grass. The last time this happened was the summer of 2012 when our snowpack in May was only 28% of normal and we received over 70 days of 90+ temperatures. We were forced to turn off roughs for three weeks that summer. Below is the snowpack map for the state. It's pretty bleak. So far a little better than 2012, but not comforting.
Here are some historical numbers on snowpack (You will need to scroll down to the South Platte River Basin for our area). It is interesting to see the differences over the years. 2002 is a year that water managers will never forget. Snow pack was lousy all year and that summer didn't help much. There was a lot of brown grass and finger pointing all over the state that season, which began the 2002 Economic Impact Study for Golf in Colorado.
In closing, every week can change with our water picture. It is Colorado and dry years do happen. Brown grass can be tolerated as it is only temporary. May's weather is looking promising. The remainder of the summer will be based on rainfall within our river basin. If it turns dry and hot for an extended period (more than 10-14 days) and the Warrior Ditch turns off, we'll be preparing for drought conditions on the property. In the meantime let's hope for timely rainfall to keep plants healthy and fire danger low.
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