The 2014 water year has ended gently – for Colorado, at least – as monsoonal rain and the remnants of Hurricane Odile provided enough moisture to push even the drought-stricken southeast quadrant into the 70-90 percent of normal precipitation range.
It’s reasonable to think of it almost as an escape, as the state was cool and wet enough to avoid the massive wildfires of the previous two years, Black Forest in 2013 and Waldo Canyon and High Park in 2012, which destroyed more than 1,100 homes. There was no epic September flood this time around.
Compared with California’s water year, which continues in the throes of devastating drought, and parts of Washington and Oregon, where millions of acres burned, Colorado was downright fortunate.
“Water year” is a Western term, and the new one began Oct. 1. It has to do with the annual cycle that includes the first snow in the high country, the accumulation of the snowpack, the spring melt and run-off, the warm summer and whatever rain might fall.
That made Sept. 30 the New Year’s Eve of the 2015 water year. But one can forgive residents of southeastern Colorado if they didn’t break out the party hats.
While the late rain boosted moisture totals there toward respectability, the region has been locked in various stages of damaging drought for years.
The U.S. Drought Monitor map, a product of the Department of Agriculture that is updated weekly, has five levels of dryness, from D0, abnormally dry, to D4, exceptional drought. Along with the Texas and Oklahoma panhandles, a big chunk of northeastern New Mexico and southwestern Kansas, southeastern Colorado has been firmly fixed with D3s, extreme drought, and D4s, as bad as it gets.
The modern map, in fact, has looked very similar to that of the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, even though, as of now, it has moderated a bit.
“Absolutely,” said assistant state climatologist Wendy Ryan from her office in Fort Collins. “As we were keeping track, particularly in 2011 and 2012, we began drawing comparisons to the ’30s. It was as dry and as hot down there as the Dust Bowl.”
The visual elements also were there: Enormous dust storms, but not with the frequency or longevity of the 1930s, and tumbleweed melees that covered highways and buried barns and houses.
“They have created havoc on the plains of eastern Colorado,” said Tobe Allumbaugh, chairman of the Crowley County Commission, of the tumbleweed conditions that began this time last year. “After three years of drought, we got moisture in the latter part of August. There was no vegetation to compete with the Russian thistle. They popped out, and they were everywhere. We got more rain in September, and it was like throwing fuel on the fire.”
The Four Corners were also dry this water year, as was the San Juan River basin, and the Rio Grande has been drought-plagued – which pretty much accounts for the southern tier of Colorado.
In the northern half of the state, the picture for this closing water year has been dramatically different. The upper Colorado River basin has been flush, and beginning after last September’s massive floods, conditions along the South Platte basin have been extraordinary. Winter wheat yields on the northeastern plains were bountiful, conditions there “beautiful,” as Ryan described them.
A look at the “teacup” map published weekly by the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University also tells the story. Lake Granby is 128 percent of average for this time of year, 98 percent full. Blue Mesa is 74 percent full; Lake Dillon is 99 percent full; Green Mountain is at 85 percent.
All of this munificence is a matter of scale, of course. Downstream on the Colorado River, massive Lake Powell was only 51 percent full last week, and, on the other end of the Grand Canyon, giant Lake Mead has been losing water after years of drought like someone pulled the plug.
So, to water year 2014, auld lang syne. How one views its passing will be a matter of perspective.
The Durango Herald brings you this report in partnership with Rocky Mountain PBS I-News. Learn more at rmpbs.org/news. Contract Jim Trotter at jtrotter@rmpbs.org.
Local reservoirs low after heavy Sept. rain
In Southwest Colorado, heavy rain in September had little effect, if at all, on area reservoirs, the monthly report by the Bureau of Reclamation shows.
Lemon Reservoir, capacity 40,000 acre-feet, was 39 percent full at the end of September, up from 35 percent a month earlier.
Vallecito Reservoir, capacity 125,000 acre-feet, was 55 percent full in September, down from 60 percent on Aug. 31.
Navajo Lake, capacity 1.7 million acre-feet, was 64 percent full, and it didn’t budge in a month.
McPhee Reservoir, capacity 381,000 acre-feet, was 49 percent full in September, down from 53 percent a month earlier.
Lake Nighthorse, capacity 123,000 acre-feet, was 99 percent full in both months.
Jackson Gulch Reservoir, capacity 10,000 acre-feet, stood at 32 percent full both months.
