The recent spring rain across metro Denver helped turn yards and parks temporarily greener, but it won’t make up for the record deficits driving extreme drought conditions that have forced cities to irrigation.
Low snow in the Colorado mountains during the exceptionally warm winter has led to below-average flows in the streams and rivers that supply metro Denver – around 18% of the norm this week in the Colorado River Basin and 2% of the norm in the South Platte River Basin, according to measurements.
“The precipitation amounts, especially across metro Denver, are not that impressive. It really didn’t do much at all to put a dent in the drought. We would need a prolonged period of well-above-average precipitation to have relief,” meteorologist Zach Hiris said. “We’ve got way too much ground to make up before we start thinking about relief or lifting those water restrictions.”
Even with the quarter-inch of rain that fell on metro Denver since Sunday, Denver Water reservoirs remained mostly less than 80% full. Denver Water officials have imposed two-day-a-week yard watering restrictions for the 1.5 million residents it supplies in Denver and surrounding suburbs in an effort to reduce use by 20% — necessary to avoid more severe restrictions this summer.
“We implemented drought restrictions because we needed to, and it is incredibly unlikely we will be able to lift them at any point this year,” Denver Water’s supply manager Nathan Elder said Friday. “We’re not on the edge of drought where a couple of storms can pull us out.
“The damage to our water resources has already been done,” he said. “Rain helps, of course, as the more it rains, the less people water, and rain helps keep our reservoirs from getting lower. Unfortunately, rain does not add significant amounts of water to reservoirs in the same way snowmelt runoff does.”
And , with its storage reservoirs 57% full, will continue to direct the city’s six “water monitor” officers to enforce their mandatory two-day-a-week restrictions. They’ve issued many warnings so far, Aurora Water spokeswoman Kirby Shedlowski said. “Itap in the hundreds.” Tickets for households that repeatedly violate the rule range from $125 up to $500.
“Our water comes from snowpack and the snowpack melting out of those mountains. The snowpack is so low this year that we just aren’t seeing the same water yields that we used to,” Shedlowski said. “We may be getting some rain down here. That helps with putting moisture into the soil. We would need to see a significant amount of rain to see any changes in water storage.”
Looking ahead, NWS forecasters predicted weekend temperatures warming to around 70 degrees, with possible afternoon rain Monday through Wednesday. “It’ll be a similar pattern to what we saw this week. The mountains will probably see a little bit of snow,” Hiris said.
Until mid-May, rain is likely to fall on Front Range cities, he said. “Beyond that, it looks as if we will get into warmer spring and summerlike patterns.”
