As of Sunday afternoon, a severe thunderstorm watch had been issued for the northeast corner of Colorado, as well as parts of Nebraska and Kansas, . The watch, which will remain in effect until 8 p.m., warns of up to apple-sized hail and 70 mph winds. “Frequent lightning” will also be possible.

The severe thunderstorm watch includes Cheyenne, Kit Carson, Lincoln, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington and Yuma counties, .

“Multiple landspout tornadoes have already been reported over the last hour from eastern Weld County to the Kansas border,” at 2:29 p.m. Sunday. “Hail and damaging winds will also be possible through the evening. Be weather aware today!”

Storms are expected to bring large hail and strong winds to the Eastern Plains again on Monday and Tuesday, according to a from the weather service.

Three-inch hail is roughly the size of an apple, while 2-inch hail sits between the size of a golf ball and a tennis ball, according to the .

In southeastern Colorado, 1.5-inch hail — roughly the size of a ping-pong ball — and up to 75 mph winds will be possible amid Sunday’s storms, .

This is a developing story and may be updated.

“There is a 63% chance of a very strong El Niño during November (to) January that would rank among the largest El Niño events in the historical record going back to 1950,” according to .

The weather pattern, marked by natural warming of the Pacific Ocean, occurs on average every two to seven years, and typically lasts nine to 12 months.

El Nino is here and scientists fear it’ll be big, bad and costly with heat, floods, droughts, fires

It primarily impacts the Northern Hemisphere in winter, bringing drier weather to the northern parts of the United States and wetter conditions across the southern United States. Colorado falls in the middle of those two regions, but experts say the pattern typically brings wetter weather to the state.

A particularly strong El Niño season can also shift the Pacific jet stream, leading to more winter storms over California and the southern United States, according to NOAA.

"Even very strong El Niño events do not lead to the expected impact everywhere, but stronger events can more significantly tilt the odds in favor of expected outcomes," according to the advisory.

Colorado was experiencing La Niña conditions, which normally brings snow to Colorado’s northern mountains and dry weather to the rest of the state, until April.

This past winter, the state saw one of its lowest snowpacks on record. Earlier this month, Gov. Jared Polis declared a statewide drought emergency. Nearly all of the state is in some form of drought.

A trio of coronal mass ejections are expected to , but current estimates show the solar storms are not as severe as those that hit Earth seven months ago.

The strongest solar energy is expected to peak at around 8 p.m. and slowly decrease in intensity throughout the night, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Space Weather Prediction Center.

The solar storms are expected to hit a G3 level, which is considered a strong storm and usually allows people in Wyoming and Nebraska to see the northern lights,

reached a G4, or severe level, which lit up Colorado’s skies with waves of vibrant pink, purple, blue and green solar energy.

In general, the best way to see the aurora is to get away from city lights and go somewhere dark, NOAA forecasters said. If the lights are difficult to see, cameras — including phone cameras — can sometimes pick up hints of the northern lights that are invisible to the naked eye.

A March heat wave shattered several records for high temperatures across Colorado. the source of at least 70% of the state’s stream flows and water in reservoirs, is the worst on record. Cities along the Front Range have enacted water restrictions.

At a time when snow in the mountains usually has barely begun to melt, several ski resorts have closed. And ranchers are looking for hay in case the rangeland and pastures can’t provide enough food for their cattle this summer.

Problems for Colorado’s cattle industry will ripple through the state’s economy. The state’s cattle herd was the nation’s 10th largest in 2025, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Beef is the state’s top agricultural export, totaling $1.26 billion in value in 2025, the Colorado Department of Agriculture said.

Beef, fresh and frozen, is Colorado’s No. 1 export overall.

“The producers that are in the business now are here for a reason. It’s because they continue to be optimistic. They just keep saying, ‘You know, it has to rain one day,’ ” said Erin Karney Spaur, executive vice president of the

But ranchers are also keeping their eyes on the sky and the forecasts. Karney Spaur said most ranchers have drought plans, which include stockpiling hay and moving cattle around to give the grass time to grow. Worst case scenario, ranchers might end up selling part of their herd.

In past dry spells, people have trucked their cattle to other parts of Colorado or other states in search of greener pastures. The problem this time is the broad sweep of the drought will make those places harder to find.

“What I haven’t seen in my lifetime is the widespread drought all throughout Colorado and the West, for that matter,” Karney Spaur said.

In most areas, cattle producers with federal grazing permits on U.S. Forest Service or Bureau of Land Management land have received letters saying to expect reductions in use of the sites unless conditions change, Karney Spaur said.

“Most BLM-managed public lands in Colorado are in severe to exceptional drought,” Colorado BLM spokesman Steven Hall said in an email.

The BLM staff regularly communicates with permittees and with industry associations, Hall said. “Typically the BLM and permittee agree on changes to grazing use during drought.”

Conditions in the Rio Grande National Forest in southwest Colorado range from moderate to exceptional drought, according to the . Ranchers have been advised that if dry conditions continue, the grazing season might have to be shortened or the number of cattle on a site reduced for part of the summer in some areas, the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in an email.

Decisions will be made case by case and the Forest Service will work with ranchers to explore options, the USDA said.

Much of the federally managed land used for grazing is in western Colorado. On the Eastern Plains, several ranchers have grazing permits on state-owned lands.

Curtis Russell, Colorado Cattlemen’s Association president, ranches in Sugar City in southeast Colorado and is a member of a grazing association that leases state lands. While the area had a good grass-growing season last summer, Russell doesn’t expect producers to move their animals onto the state lands this season until it rains.

The State Land Board closely monitors drought conditions and manages grazing on a case-by-case basis in coordination with lessees, spokeswoman Emily Barbo said in email. The staff is in close communication with ranchers across the state, she said.

“Things are really trying to green up, but it’s just hard,” Russell said. “We had 90-degree days in March. It was pretty hard to keep moisture in the ground with the wind blowing and 90 degrees.”

Ranchers on the Western Slope were battling through a dry summer in 2025 when wildfires erupted and raced through the parched vegetation. The fires scorched some ranchers’ pastures and federal grazing allotments.

Off the charts

Retta Bruegger, a regional range management specialist with Colorado State University Extension, calls snowpack “money in the bank” for ranchers who depend on grasses and plants to feed their cattle. But with Colorado’s snowpack at its lowest-ever levels, the bank is close to tapped-out.

“To be perfectly frank, this year is off the charts in terms of what it looks like and how it’s setting up so far,” Bruegger said. “I think people will be making a lot of hard decisions.”

On a recent trip just over the Colorado border into Utah, Bruegger said the forage looked better than she expected. The outlook could change if the weather does.

“In the world of all possibilities, it could start snowing tomorrow and snow until June 1. I don’t necessarily think that’s going to happen, but that would change some things if it does,” Bruegger said.

Janie VanWinkle and her family ranch in Mesa County. They graze their cattle on land they own and on leases with the federal government, the city of Grand Junction and Colorado Mesa University. The bulk of their grazing in the summer is on Forest Service land and they’re not sure whether use of the allotment will be restricted because of the drought.

“We’ll be having a meeting with our Forest Service range specialist in the next month or so. We’re kind of waiting to see what the weather is going to do,” VanWinkle said.

She finds the uncertainty unnerving after the  forced the family off their usual allotment to another area. VanWinkle and her husband, Howard, spent 122 days on horseback, moving their animals from water to food and at times through flames. The firefighters worked closely with the family to keep them and the cattle safe.

“The good news is we didn’t lose a single cow in the fire,” said VanWinkle, whose son works with her and husband.

As the family heads into what could be another dry summer, wildfires are a concern. “We’ve never talked about this, but I know this is the fear that’s been in my son’s heart. It’s the fear that’s in mine and my husband’s: What if there’s another one?” VanWinkle asks.

The statewide snowpack was at 21% of median Wednesday, the reported. This year’s level is the worst since measurements were recorded starting in the late 1930s and early 1940s.

In addition, the snow water equivalent, the amount of liquid water stored in the snow, was 3.3 inches, just 22% of the 30-year median, as of April 1, said Russ Schumacher, state climatologist and director of CSU’s Colorado Climate Center. The previous low was 9.1 inches in 1987.

“That’s the metric we pay attention to for water because that’s the water that’s going to flow into the rivers” and increase soil moisture, Schumacher said.

A year when the water content is 70% to 80% of average in early April would be considered a bad year, he added. “This year, we’re looking at 20% of the average, which is so far beyond that.”

Colorado has been hot as well as dry.

“That heat wave in March was just astonishing in terms of how unusually warm everything was across the state,” Schumacher said.

It was Colorado’s warmest March on record, according to the . Averaged across the state, the month was 13.1 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than the 20th century average and 4.3 degrees above any previous March.

Relief might come this summer in the form of El Niño, the weather phenomenon that warms the ocean surface in the central and eastern tropical Pacific Ocean.

“Globally, it tends to raise temperatures. Here in Colorado, that tends not to be the case. We tend to be wetter and somewhat cooler, later in the summer and fall,” Schumacher said.

The said April 9 that the chance of an El Niño was 61% and a one-in-four chance that it might be strong.

David Gottenborg, whose family owns Eagle Rock Ranch in South Park, is hoping for a change. Park County typically doesn’t get a lot of moisture in winter, but this winter was even drier than usual. And warmer.

“We sit on Tarryall Creek and we’re running about 15, 14 cubic feet per second versus normally about 30 or so. So we’re about half,” Gottenborg said.

The Gottenborgs, who raise cattle and hay, irrigated a little in the last couple of weeks.

“Irrigation season typically starts April 1. In most years, it’s almost kind of a moot point because our head gates are frozen,” Gottenborg said.

Not this year. And there’s no ice now in Tarryall, a tributary of the South Platte River.

Besides cattle, hay is one of the Gottenborgs’ main income sources. They partnered with Colorado Parks and Wildlife to donate 48 tons of hay in December to Western Slope ranchers whose land was burned by the Lee wildfire last summer.

But their hay crop was down last year and they’ve halted sales for now.

“The old-timers here in the valley, they would always keep at least half of what they would need the following year in their stack yards. We’re trying to do that,” Gottenborg said.

The ranch gets calls almost every day from people looking to buy hay. Gottenborg said a woman told him that she had contacted more than 30 people. “We had to tell her ‘no’ as well.”

Karney Spaur of Colorado Cattlemen said she’s heard of hay selling for $300 to $350 a ton. This time of year, she said $150 to $175 a ton is more the norm.

One bright spot for ranchers is that in large part because of low cattle numbers nationwide.

“If you have to sell cows, it’s a good time to sell cows because they’re worth a lot of money,” said Russell, the rancher from Sugar City. “On the other hand, if El Nino comes in like they’re talking about this summer and we get a lot of rain and people have already sold cows and need to buy cows back, it’ll cost a lot of money.”

Drought conditions are forecast to develop and worsen across the western half of the country through June, including in Colorado, according to a . But relief could be on the horizon, with above-average precipitation expected in Colorado from July to October, the state’s monsoon season, .

“We’re in bad drought conditions pretty much everywhere in the state, and so any sort of hope for relief out in the future, I think, is what people are looking for,” Colorado State Climatologist said. Schumacher is also an at Colorado State University and director of the .

Seasonal forecasts currently anticipate an active monsoon season in late summer and El Niño conditions in the fall and winter, Schumacher said.

“The chances are there that there will be a very strong El Niño,” Schumacher said. “But we don’t have a lot of historical data points to compare to for these super El Niños … and we don’t want to over-interpret those few times that it����ap happened in the past to determine what may come.”

It����ap hard to predict how El Niño will affect Colorado, because the weather pattern routinely brings wet weather to the southwest states and dry weather to the northeast, Schumacher said. Colorado sits nearly in the middle.

“But, in general, when we go into El Niño in Colorado, it at least tilts the odds toward the wetter side of things,” he said. “La Niña, which we’ve been in for the last two years, tends to be when we see drought.”

La Niña conditions, , normally bring snow to Colorado’s northern mountains and dry weather to the rest of the state. Instead, this year, abnormally low snowpack shut down the state’s ski resorts early and has many residents planning their lawn care around water restrictions. This year’s March was also the hottest in documented history for many Colorado cities, including Denver, where more than a dozen heat records were broken.

What you need to know about Front Range drought restrictions

El Niño and La Niña are opposite ends of the -- a climate phenomenon based on water temperatures in the Pacific Ocean that influences temperatures and precipitation around the globe, . The world is currently sitting in neutral, the middle of the two climate patterns.

Periods of El Niño and La Niña typically happen every two to seven years and last nine to 12 months, but they don't operate on a regular schedule, . Generally, El Niño years occur more frequently and, while they bring warmer temperatures globally, tend to be colder in Colorado, Schumacher said.

As of Thursday, NOAA forecasters of El Niño conditions between September and January, and a 25% chance of a very strong El Niño starting in October, also referred to as a “super” El Niño.

But before Colorado gets there, it's on track to see a wet summer season.

“The best case scenario is the rains come a bit early this year, and they’re slow and steady -- we get regular showers and thunderstorms every day … and that helps to keep the wildfire risk down and reduce the demand for water,” Schumacher said.

“I think the worst-case scenario is that we have an early and bad wildfire season because of how dry things are in the mountains, and then the monsoon rains come heavy later in the summer,” he continued. “Then we’re dealing with a lot of flash flood risk on those burn scars. I don’t know which of those is more plausible.”

Flash floods are more likely on wildfire burn scars because the burnt soil can’t absorb the water as well. Even just a little rain on burn scars can quickly lead to flash floods and debris flows, Schumacher said.

But the forecast isn't set in stone, especially several months out, he said, adding that "there’s always just a lot of uncertainty in terms of what����ap going to happen.”

Winter is more than just a season in the western U.S. – it is a savings account to get farms and homes through the long, dry summer ahead. As the snowpack that accumulates in the mountains through winter slowly melts in late spring and summer, it feeds into rivers and reservoirs that keep communities and ecosystems functioning.

The April 1 snowpack measurement has long been the single most important number in western water management, considered a strong proxy for how much water the mountains are holding in reserve.

But in 2026, that .

Across the western United States, temperatures from November through February were among the , with many areas (2.8 to 5.5 degrees Celsius) above the 20th-century average. March continued to break heat records, leaving on April 1. At lower elevations, the higher temperatures meant a significant part of the winter’s precipitation fell as rain rather than snow. In some places, snowfall accumulated but melted quickly during warm periods.

As a result, even regions that received near- or above-normal precipitation for the season failed to build substantial snowpack. In the northern Rockies and the mountains of the Pacific Northwest, any above-average snow accumulation was largely confined to the highest elevations, while middle and lower elevations had relatively little snowpack.

This situation is a hallmark of warming winters. As global temperatures rise, the freezing line where precipitation changes from rain to snow moves up the mountains, shrinking the area capable of sustaining a seasonal snowpack.

The exceptionally warm winter of 2025-26 across much of the western U.S. delivered a powerful preview of what in a warmer climate may increasingly look like: less snow and a fundamental – the chart of how much water flows through streams across the year.

A flattening hydrologic pulse

The consequences of this shift for water supplies are already visible in streamflows.

In multiple river basins in the West, streamflows were above average in winter and early spring, and some locations were . Historically, that water would have remained frozen in the snowpack until late spring. Instead, precipitation arriving as rain – along with intermittent midwinter melting events – increased the runoff.

Scientists who study natural water flows, , pay attention to the hydrographs of streamflows in river basins to see when the water flow in mountain streams is strongest and how long that flow is likely to continue into summer.

In recent years, rising temperatures have led to a redistribution of streamflows throughout the winter and early spring in ways that are of snowmelt-dominated rivers. Rather than a single dominant peak during late spring or early summer, emerge in winter and early spring. At the same time, the traditional snowmelt pulse, relied on to fill reservoirs in late spring, weakens.

In effect, the hydrograph is flattening. The winter of 2025-26 illustrates this phenomenon: Higher early-season streamflows suggest the West will see less runoff later in the year when communities, farms and wildlife need it.

The Colorado River: A system on the edge

Nowhere does the convergence of record warmth, depleted snowpack and altered hydrology carry higher stakes than in the Colorado River Basin. More than plus Mexico and 5.5 million acres of farmland depend on the river’s water, but the river’s flow is no longer meeting demand.

The April-through-July 2026 runoff into Lake Powell – the reservoir behind Glen Canyon Dam and the of the Upper Colorado River Basin’s annual water budget – is in recent decades. It has been tracking close to the , considered benchmarks of western drought.

Unless spring brings substantial late-season snowfall to the high mountains, 2026 could join those years as a marker of how thin the margin between water supply and demand has become in a river system already under sustained stress from two decades of drought and water overuse.

The low reservoir levels in the basin in 2026 and the low snowpack are adding fears of water shortages just as the seven states that rely on the Colorado River are struggling to reach a .

The changing rhythm of water in the West

The winter of 2025-26 highlights two emerging realities.

First, in determining western water supplies. Even above-normal precipitation cannot compensate for persistent warmth when it falls as rain rather than snow and accelerates snowmelt in the mountains.

Second, the nature of the West’s streamflows is shifting in ways that complicate water management.

Rain-on-snow events can produce flooding in winter, as the . A low snowpack also means less runoff in summer, which can exacerbate water shortages and raise the wildfire risk as landscapes dry out. Even if a year has normal precipitation, if it falls as rain or there is earlier snowmelt, then evaporation through summer, in a warmer climate, will leave less water in the system.

Snowpack declines, earlier runoff, elevated winter flows and flattened hydrographs are all for the western United States as global temperatures rise.

What makes the winter of 2025-26 notable is how clearly these signals appeared, even in a year without widespread precipitation deficits.

This shift highlights the need for adaptive reservoir operations – the ability to adjust water storage and release decisions in real time to capture earlier runoff and preserve water for longer dry seasons, while still maintaining space in reservoirs for flood control during wetter winters. For communities across the West, it also reinforces the growing reality that the familiar seasonal rhythm of mountain water is changing.

Imtiaz Rangwala is a senior research scientist in climate at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .

A heat dome that’s expected to hover over the state and the Mountain West through Saturday is forecast to bring temperatures into the 80s at lower elevations and into the 50s and 60s at higher elevations. The heat this week follows the warmest winter recorded in Colorado since records began in 1895.

“It’s possible that many areas of the state at high elevations have already seen peak snowpack,” Peter Goble, the assistant state climatologist, the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s Water Conditions Monitoring Committee on Tuesday.

The temperatures expected from the heat dome will be high enough to spur melting, said Brian Domonkos, a hydrologist with the Colorado office of the federal . Statewide, snowpack depth typically peaks around April 8.

The National Weather Service — at an elevation of 11,020 feet — shows overnight lows are not expected to drop below freezing until Sunday night. Daytime highs could hit 60 degrees.

, located at nearly 11,000 feet in southern Colorado, is also not forecast to reach freezing temperatures overnight this week.

The record heat is expected to shrink an already anemic snowpack. Statewide snowpack , the lowest recorded since records began in 1986. Some river basins in southern Colorado — including the Rio Grande, the San Juan, the Animas and the Arkansas — had less than half of normal snowpack on Wednesday.

“We have very little winter left,” Domonkos said. “There’s essentially no chance for us to get back to normal snowpack.”

Colorado’s mountains and streams will begin to see increased water flows from the melting this week, according to the .

in Steamboat Springs will likely more than double in the next seven days, from 124 cubic feet per second on Wednesday to more than 400 cfs late next week. The Animas River in Durango could hop from winter flows hovering around 300 cfs to .

Those flows are still far lower than peak runoff flows that will come later this spring and summer. But expected extended warm temperatures, paired with the “extremely grim” snowpack, mean those peak flows will also be lower than normal, said Cody Moser, a hydrologist with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, at a briefing Wednesday.

Across the Colorado River Basin — which includes a large swath of western Colorado — those flows are expected to be at or below 70% of the average recorded between 1991 and 2020, he said.

Across the Colorado River Basin, “I think it’s highly likely that we’ve already seen peak snowpack,” Moser said.

The vast majority of Colorado’s water supply comes from its winter snowpack. The lack of snow has water providers across the state enacting drought restrictions or preparing to do so.

Denver Water — which serves 1.5 million people across the Front Range — will likely skip declaring a drought watch and instead skip to the next step by imposing Stage 1 water restrictions, Nathan Elder, the utility’s water supply manager, said Tuesday.

Those restrictions — last implemented in 2013 — in outdoor water use.

Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday activated the state Drought Task Force to address the dire conditions. The task force will monitor conditions across the state and recommend mitigation efforts to Polis. The governor last activated the task force in 2020.

If conditions continue to deteriorate, Polis could declare a drought emergency and seek federal disaster assistance.

“Colorado is experiencing the warmest year so far in our 131-year record, and one of the driest,” Polis said in a news release. “Activating the Drought Task Force will help ensure we are protecting one of our most precious resources by closely tracking impacts, supporting communities, and coordinating better as we prepare for the year ahead.”

Strong winds up to 75 mph are possible, and single-digit humidity is expected, forecasters said.

Red flag warnings will be in effect from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. Saturday for Arapahoe, Baca, Boulder, Broomfield, Chaffee, Crowley, Douglas, Denver, El Paso, Elbert, Fremont, Huerfano, Jefferson, Kiowa, Las Animas, Larimer, Lincoln, Logan, Morgan, Otero, Phillips, Pueblo, Sedgwick, Washington and Weld counties, .

“Extreme fire danger is expected,” forecasters said in one alert for southern Colorado. “Fires will uncontrollably spread and be very destructive.”

Forecasters expect wind gusts up to 55 mph in southern Colorado, 60 mph across the Interstate 25 corridor — including Denver — and 70 mph in the foothills of Boulder and Jefferson counties. Humidity values as low as 8% are expected.

according to the National Severe Storms Laboratory, which is part of the same federal agency as the weather service.

High wind warnings will also be in effect for the Sawatch and Sangre de Cristo mountain ranges in central Colorado from 6 p.m. Saturday to 3 p.m. Sunday, . Up to 75 mph wind gusts are forecast for the ranges.

“Damaging winds will blow down trees and power lines,” forecasters wrote in the wind warnings. “Widespread power outages are expected. Travel will be difficult, especially for high-profile vehicles. … Blowing dust could reduce visibility to under a mile at times.”

 will be in effect for the Front Range and Eastern Plains from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. on Thursday, . As of Wednesday evening, the included parts of Adams, Arapahoe, Boulder, Broomfield, Douglas, Denver, El Paso, Elbert, Jefferson, Larimer, Lincoln, Logan, Morgan, Phillips, Sedgwick, Washington and Weld counties.

Wind gusts up to 60 mph and humidity values as low as 11% are forecast across northern Colorado, according to the weather service. In southern Colorado, relative humidity may drop into the single digits.

“Extremely critical” fire weather conditions are expected Thursday and Saturday between the foothills and the Eastern Plains, . A slight lull in wind on Friday will temporarily drop fire danger down to “critical.”

Critical fire weather conditions will occur this week, accelerating for the end of the week.

Thursday, Friday, and Saturday will see the most widespread critical conditions with strong, gusty winds – peaking Thursday and Saturday. Avoid any outdoor burning this week.

— NWS Boulder (@NWSBoulder)

will also be in place between 4 a.m. Thursday and noon Friday for the northernmost state and part of Colorado’s mountains, according to the weather service. The — which cover Boulder, Clear Creek, Gilpin, Grand, Jackson, Larimer, Logan, Park and Weld counties, including Rocky Mountain National Park — predict wind gusts of up to 90 mph.

Winds stronger than 50 mph are considered “damaging,” according to the , which is part of the same federal agency as the weather service.

“Damaging winds will blow down trees and power lines,” forecasters wrote in the warning. “Power outages are possible. Travel will be difficult, especially for high-profile vehicles.”

Modeling released late last week showed the river system on track to deliver a scant 2.3 million acre-feet to Lake Powell, one of the river system’s largest reservoirs. That’s 36% of the median of 6.4 million acre-feet recorded between 1991 and 2020. If the forecast comes true, it would be the fifth-lowest inflow to Lake Powell since the reservoir’s establishment in 1963, according to the National Weather Service’s .

“It’s not a pretty picture here,” Cody Moser, a hydrologist with the center, said of the basin’s snowpack during .

Lake Powell and its counterpart, Lake Mead, make up the vast majority of water storage on the Colorado River, which provides drinking water to 40 million people, sustains millions of acres of agriculture and provides critical wildlife habitat.

Lower-than-expected water supplies can lead to fallowed farm fields, drought restrictions in cities and difficult decisions for water managers tasked with divvying up the meager supplies. relies on water from the river and its tributaries. Front Range communities, too, need the river. Half the supplies used by comes from the Colorado River.

Lake Powell, located primarily in southern Utah, collects water from the states upstream of it — Colorado, Utah, Wyoming and New Mexico — and releases water to three states below — Arizona, Nevada and California.

Negotiators from the seven Colorado River basin states for more than two years have tried to agree on a plan to split up the river’s water, but so far they have failed. The river’s current operation guidelines expire at the end of the calendar year.

Already, water levels could fall so low at Lake Powell by August that water will no longer flow through the intake tubes for Glen Canyon Dam’s hydroelectric turbines. Lake Powell at the beginning of March was 24% full, while Mead — which is in Nevada and Arizona — was 34% full.

Much of the Colorado River’s water begins as snow in Colorado’s mountains, which have been plagued by record-low snowfall this winter.

The Colorado River headwaters’ snowpack — the lowest recorded level since measurements began in 1986.

“The Colorado headwaters are the worst this water year; they’re well below normal,” Moser said, noting that many winter storms missed the area.

Other regions in the basin have fared better. Basinwide, precipitation amounts are similar to those recorded last season.

Some areas, like the Green River basin above Flaming Gorge Reservoir — which straddles the Wyoming-Utah border — have received above-average precipitation.

But record heat erased any good news about precipitation, Moser said. Much of the Colorado River basin experienced the warmest winter on record, he said.

Higher temperatures convert would-be snowstorms into rainstorms. When it rains instead of snowing, more of the water is absorbed by the soil, evaporates or is sucked up by plants — reducing the amount of water available for human use.

The heat also has dried out soils across the basin, which means that the ground will absorb more water than normal, decreasing the amount expected to flow downstream.

Some snow has already begun to melt — even at elevations as high as 10,000 feet, Moser said.

River gauges are already recording daytime melting, Moser said, including on tributaries to the Yampa River in Colorado and on the rivers and streams above Blue Mesa Reservoir outside Gunnison. Typically, the snow in those mountains does not begin to melt until early April.

Even in the best-case scenario, it is too late for Colorado River supplies to reach normal. At best, if spring weather is significantly wetter and cooler than expected, inflow to Lake Powell could reach two-thirds of normal.

If the river delivers the projected 2.3 million acre-feet of water, it would be slightly more than the panic-inducing inflows of 2012. The lowest inflow on record occurred in 2002, when less than 1 million acre-feet made its way to the reservoir.

There’s not much hope in the near future for drought-reversing weather. Temperatures are expected to remain warmer than normal and precipitation lower than normal across the entire basin through at least March 19, Moser said.

“Starting tomorrow, it’s going to be mostly dry,” he said on Friday.