WATFSummaryMay2002

• Title: Task Force Meeting Minutes
• Date: 5/23/2002
• Description: Minutes
• Basin: Statewide
• Drought Mitigation - Doc Type: WATF Meeting Summary

the pattern that year, we started out really low, and then we increased through the winter, so kind
of an opposite pattern this year, compared to ' 81.

_ - And then let me say that it helps a lot through April and May, due to _? _ supplement?
(laughter)

Mike - that's a good question. Probably a lot of sublimation this year.

_ - That what seemed to just disappear,

Mike - That's just what's on the ground, and we learn somehow to address
streamflow.. .(inaudible). OK, so this is '77, and again we see a similar pattern to what we say in
'81. So kind of a slight improvement as we went through the winter, and then things dropped off
in May. Quite different from what we saw this year. 1'lljust go through some of these individual
basins now. These are the last 3 year's winter snowpacks as compared to the average, the average
is the redline, this year, the black line, you see the Arkansas as of today is at 4% of average, one of
the 7 sites in the basin has snow left, and that one's got 1.8% of water equivalent, so it will be
gone in a couple days. Colorado Basin, similar story, 3% of average, of the 23 sites in the
Colorado Basin, only 2 have snow remaining, and they're all less than 5 inches of water
equivalent, so they'll be melted out within a week. Gunnison basin is already melted out, it
melted out on May 19, in an average year we melt out on July 21 st, so we're about 2 months ahead
of schedule, very similar to what Rich was talking about with fire season being 7 weeks ahead of
schedule. So, similar story in snowpack. North Platte Basin, 17% of average, of the 9 sites in the
basin, 4 still have snow, and thank goodness we have 1 site that has 19 inches of water equivalent,
that's Tower Snowtel, and it usually doesn't melt out until mid-July. The Rio Grande basin, it
melted out on may 22, average meltout day July 27th. Again, about 2 months ahead of schedule
there. San JuanlDolores, it melted out May 21 st, typically meltout is July 23rd, again 2 months
ahead of normal. South Platte Basin, now at 7% of average, that basins got 15 sites in it, and only
3 still have snow left, a little bit less than 5 inches of water equivalent. The YampalWhite Basin at
13% of average, the Tower Snowtel is still included in that, so it still hasn't melted out yet.
Statewide, 5% of average as of today. You can see that this year's been well below the last
pervious dry years. Thought 1'd throw this in, it just kind of shows, this is Snowtel's precipitation
data, beginning October 2000, so its got a little over a year and a half of data here, you can just see
the last of the seven months, all below average, and exceptionally below average, when you have
50% average precipitation for the month, you know you've been pretty dry, and when you put
together a series of months like this, you're seeing the impacts now. Of course, April was only
39% of average, so it continues to just get worse. You look back here at this April, September,
November, these are the months prior to the accumulation of our seasonal snowpack this year, and
just see how dry it was, it just contributed to some of the dryer soils we might have right now, and
when the snowpack did melt this year, a lot of that just went into soil recharge. Take a look of
Reservoir Storage now, 86% of average, statewide. 88% oflast year, we're below average just
about statewide, except for the Gunnison Basin, they managed to store 117% of average volumes.
Well below average on the Southwest, with the Arkansas. Look at this in a little more detail, this
graph here, the Gunnison Basin as you can see, is increasing your storage a bit, up through April,
Colorado Basin, tried to increase their storage a bit, but now they're probably increasing demands,
as well as the South Platte Taking a decrease. The Arkansas is about holding its own, hardly any

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