After Colorado’s exceptionally snowy October, Colorado’s current snowpack is more than twice its typical early November level.
The data , as of Friday’s official update.
The highest snowpack levels are in northern Colorado, where some areas are more than three times above where they should be for early November. Most of the snowfall came over the past two weeks, as a series of strong and exceptionally cold storm systems moved through the state, dumping feet of snow across the northern mountains. Because most of October’s snow events arrived from the north, Colorado’s northern mountains — the Park, Medicine Bow and Front Ranges — saw the most overall snowfall.
Because of that, though, some parts of southern Colorado are running a tick behind average snowpack levels, as of Friday’s update.
Of course, all of that snow also has and opening earlier than usual. It’s also has forced the earliest closure of Independence Pass in nearly a decade.
That said, October statewide precipitation — a measure of the overall moisture — was only 82% of average, . Because colder air can hold less water than warm air, there is typically a correlation between a colder-than-average month and lower precipitation amounts.
That means the majority of the state officially remains in a drought, . More than 80% of the state is considered to be abnormally dry.
After all of the recent snow, though, no significant snowfall appears to be in the near-term forecast. A generally dry pattern will limit snow chances for most of the state over the next week to 10 days.
