Colorado’s snowpack has fallen to record lows across much of the state this winter, with statewide snow water equivalent measured at just 56% of median as of January 1, 2026. The collapse, driven by an unusually warm and dry January, has triggered below-normal streamflow forecasts for the season ahead and raised serious concerns about drought intensification across the Front Range and the broader Colorado River Basin. For Denver and other communities that depend on mountain snowmelt for drinking water and agriculture, the deficit represents one of the most alarming starts to a water year in decades.
A Record-Breaking Snow Deficit Takes Shape
The scale of this winter’s snowpack shortage is difficult to overstate. The USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service confirmed that 38% of long-record SNOTEL sites with 20 or more years of data registered their lowest readings ever as of January 1. SNOTEL stations are automated sensors placed across mountain watersheds to track snow depth, temperature, and precipitation in real time, and they form the backbone of western water supply forecasting. When more than a third of these stations simultaneously hit all-time lows, it signals a deficit that is not isolated to one basin or one elevation band but is spread across the entire state.
The cause is not simply a lack of storms. Warm temperatures throughout the fall and early winter shifted the type of precipitation that fell at many elevations. Instead of accumulating as snow, moisture arrived as rain or fell on warm ground and melted quickly. The NRCS has described this dynamic as a snow-focused drought, a condition where total precipitation may not be drastically below normal but the snowpack that communities rely on for slow spring and summer runoff fails to build. That distinction matters because rain runs off immediately or evaporates, while snowpack acts as a natural reservoir that releases water gradually over months. The loss of that storage function is what makes this winter’s numbers so consequential for water managers who must balance urban demand, agricultural needs, and environmental flows with a shrinking supply.
January Warmth Compounds the Problem
January 2026 made a bad situation worse. Climate monitoring from NOAA’s national center documented widespread warmth across the West and precipitation deficits at the national scale, with the month ranking among the driest on record for multiple western states. In Colorado, that warmth arrived during what is typically the heart of the snow accumulation season, when storms should be packing high-altitude basins with the frozen water that feeds rivers through July and August. Instead, many storms that did reach the state dropped rain at elevations that would normally see snow, further eroding the snowpack and leaving high-country soils exposed and dry.
By February 1, the NRCS issued updated forecasts showing that the warm and dry January had driven snowpack to below-normal streamflow projections across the state’s major river basins. The agency’s Colorado Water Supply Outlook Reports, available through its NWCC report archive, provide basin-by-basin breakdowns of snowpack, precipitation, reservoir storage, and expected runoff, and the latest editions paint a consistent picture of risk. Every major drainage in Colorado faces the prospect of diminished flows this spring and summer unless late-season storms deliver an extraordinary correction, and even then, warm temperatures could limit how much of that late snow survives into peak runoff.
Drought Risk Escalates Across the Intermountain West
The snowpack collapse is not happening in a vacuum. Federal drought monitoring agencies have already flagged the connection between low snow and expanding dryness. A mid-January status update for the Intermountain West tied low snowpack directly to worsening conditions across Colorado and neighboring states, quantifying the share of Colorado SNOTEL stations at their lowest or second-lowest readings on record and reporting Upper Colorado River Basin snow water equivalent as a percentage of median. The update warned that without a marked shift to cooler and wetter conditions, snow-dependent basins would enter spring with a substantial water deficit baked in, leaving little buffer against an early or hot summer.
The U.S. Drought Monitor uses a scale from D0, or abnormally dry, through D4, which is exceptional drought. Extreme drought, classified as category D3 in Colorado, triggers water-use restrictions, agricultural disaster declarations, and emergency planning at the state and federal level. Colorado has experienced D3 conditions in recent memory, and the current snowpack deficit raises the probability of a return to that category by midsummer if streamflows come in as low as current forecasts suggest. For Front Range residents, that could mean tighter outdoor watering rules, pressure on reservoir storage, and higher costs for agricultural producers who compete for the same limited supply, while ecosystems that depend on cold, steady mountain runoff could face warmer streams and stressed fisheries.
What Low Snowpack Means for Denver’s Water Future
Denver’s water supply depends heavily on snowmelt from Front Range headwaters that feed the South Platte River system, along with transbasin diversions from the Colorado River watershed. Individual SNOTEL stations in those headwater basins, whose daily snow water equivalent and temperature readings are accessible through the NRCS station interface, provide the raw measurement stream that forecasters use to estimate how much water will flow into reservoirs over the coming months. When those stations show record or near-record lows, the math for water utilities and irrigation districts gets difficult fast. Less snowmelt means less inflow, which means reservoir levels that were already under pressure from years of variable precipitation may not recover to comfortable operating ranges before the next heating season begins.
For Denver Water and neighboring providers, the challenge is twofold: planning for a potentially dry summer in 2026 and reassessing long-term assumptions about how often such winters might occur. Utilities can respond in the short term by encouraging or mandating conservation, adjusting reservoir operations to stretch supplies, and coordinating with agricultural water users to manage peak demand periods. But if winters with snowpack near half of median become more common, the region may need to invest more heavily in efficiency, diversified supplies, and watershed restoration that improves the ability of forests and soils to capture and slowly release what precipitation does fall. Low snowpack also raises the risk of earlier runoff, which can shift peak flows into months when demand is still relatively low, complicating storage strategies and potentially leaving late-summer users exposed to shortages.
A Strained Colorado River System Faces New Tests
The broader Colorado River system faces a parallel and arguably more complex challenge. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation is developing post-2026 operating rules for Lake Powell and Lake Mead that will determine how shortages are shared among the seven basin states and Mexico in the years ahead. Those negotiations and environmental analyses assume a range of possible hydrologic futures, but winters like 2025-26 test the lower end of those projections by delivering far less snow to the headwaters that feed the entire system. When snowpack in Colorado’s high country falters, inflows to Powell and Mead can drop sharply, tightening the margin for error in already-stressed reservoirs.
For communities in Colorado, the link between local snowpack and the larger river system is direct. Many Front Range utilities rely on transmountain diversions that move water from the Colorado River Basin to the eastern slope, meaning that low snow on the Western Slope can constrain supplies on both sides of the Continental Divide. At the same time, commitments under interstate compacts require Colorado to deliver a share of the river’s flow downstream, obligations that become harder to meet when headwater snowpack is at record lows. As water managers weigh how to respond to this winter’s deficit, they must navigate not only local needs and environmental considerations, but also the legal and political realities of a river system that binds together tens of millions of people from the Rockies to the Gulf of California.
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*This article was researched with the help of AI, with human editors creating the final content.
