High in the Rocky Mountains, under thin air and bluebird skies, the Colorado River basin is slowly filling its savings account. Craggy peaks become smooth walls of white and piles of snow climb conifer trunks, covering even the deepest, darkest corners of the woods with a glimmering blanket.
The snow that accumulates in the mountains of Colorado and Wyoming will eventually become water in the Colorado River. Some of it will flow as far south as Mexico, running through kitchen faucets in cities and suburbs along the way, or watering crops that keep America fed through the winter.
Year by year, those piles are getting slightly smaller and melting earlier 鈥� slowly exhibiting the sting of a warming climate. The way we measure the snow is changing too, as a shifting baseline for what counts as 鈥渁verage鈥� paints a somewhat deceptive picture of how much snow is stored up in the mountains.
It鈥檚 the type of thing that plays out subtly over the course of a human lifetime. On ski mountains across the region, it might be hard to notice anything beyond the normal ebb and flow of good years and bad years.
Tony Vagneur, a born-and-raised Aspen local, is looking out across the slopes of the town鈥檚 main ski mountain, basking in the warm afternoon sun and the glory of a classic Colorado ski day.
鈥淏lue sky, bluebird day,鈥� he said. 鈥淭he kind everybody talks about. Temperatures probably in the low teens. The snow is hard and fast. I mean, it's perfect.鈥�
This mountain and the town at its base depend on snow to keep the resort running. Vagneur has been skiing it for more than 70 years, and hasn鈥檛 noticed much change as far as the snow is concerned. But down in the valley, where he lives on a ranch, signs of changing snowpack are manifesting, starting with a dry year in the mid-70s that left his fields snowless by March.
鈥淚 hate to say, but many Marches after that, the hay fields have been bare,鈥� he said. 鈥淪o anecdotally, you could say it is probably a little less snow. Or maybe it's warmer. I don't know, not being a scientist. But it's noticeable.鈥�
It鈥檚 noticeable to the scientists too, who have data to back up observations that Colorado鈥檚 snowpack is changing.
鈥淚f you look at long-term climate trends, you see a general warming in climate,鈥� said Heather Lewin, science and policy director at Roaring Fork Conservancy. 鈥淲hich doesn't necessarily change the amount of precipitation in headwaters areas, but changes how it falls.鈥�
The conservancy does river research and education just downstream of Aspen, where snowmelt rushes through the valley on its way to the Colorado River. The Roaring Fork watershed makes up 0.5% of the landmass in the Colorado River basin, but provides about 10% of its water.
鈥淲e're seeing more precipitation as rain rather than as snow,鈥� Lewin said. 鈥淪o that means instead of having a savings account, we have a spending account that hits the river and moves quickly, versus a savings account that kind of gives us a long-term security.鈥�
As snow behavior changes, so does the way we understand snow measurement. In spring 2021, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) for all of its data.
In a way, it鈥檚 routine. Every 10 years, NOAA moves the three-decade window that it uses for averages. But the rapidly accelerating effects of climate change mean the current window sticks out from previous 30-year periods. The current window runs from 1991 to 2020, which includes the hottest-ever period in America鈥檚 recorded weather history.
Because of that, snowpack data tells a slightly deceptive story. It鈥檚 most frequently shared as a percent of average when it appears in newspapers and reports for skiers and river users. For example, if snowpack is at 120%, the number would appear far lower if current totals were compared to normals going back further than 30 years.
鈥淭he context right now is that 120% of average might give us an inflated sense of confidence as to how much water we're going to see this summer and how much snow we're really looking at right now,鈥� Lewin said.
Other scientists are noting some change too, including those who actually gather the snow measurements.
鈥淲hen I first started 15 years ago, we'd actually measure some snow in the April-May survey,鈥� said Stephen Jaouen, a conservationist with the Natural Resources Conservation Service. 鈥淎nd a lot of times now, we just walk in and there's no snow.鈥�
Jaouen conducts snow surveys deep in the Roaring Fork watershed, where getting good data requires a bit of trekking. After a drive downstream from Aspen, the winding mountain road extends past the fringes of cell signal, past a sprawling reservoir and up through dense thickets of Aspen trees.
At a trailhead on the side of the road, Jaouen and a technician click into backcountry skis and begin the journey downhill 鈥� a stumbly start-and-stop bushwhack through low brush and scattered tree trunks.
Then, with the help of traction skins on the bottoms of their skis, the pair hikes even further into the woods, following the route from memory until they reach the snow survey site. Here, Jaouen assembles a long aluminum tube and pulls out an analog scale. At nine separate points, he plunges the tube into the snow underfoot, filling it with a core of the white stuff. Using a ruler on the tube and the handheld scale, Jaouen and the technician produce measurements and jot down findings in a little notebook.
The process may sound a bit old-school, and that鈥檚 because it is. This exact site has been used for snow measurement 鈥� conducted in the exact same way 鈥� for almost a century. The only thing that鈥檚 changed, Jaouen said, is that heavy steel tubes were swapped for aluminum for easier carrying.
鈥淵ou just know that the data has been collected the same way for so long that we can see rises and falls in snow water equivalent,鈥� he said. 鈥淵ou know what different years were happening all the way back into the '30s.鈥�
The old-fashioned techniques were joined by a high-tech network of SNOTEL measuring sites in the 1970s and 鈥�80s, adding greater depth to the West鈥檚 understanding of snowpack. They use sensitive measuring equipment and automatically beam data to researchers via satellite.
Together, the new and old data paint an increasingly important picture of the region鈥檚 water supply.
鈥淚 think as the West got developed and more and more people showed up and are using the river, it becomes that much more important that people understand it and know that this water one day is going to feed California avocados or Mexico cantaloupe,鈥� Jaouen said.
While drought has dominated headlines during many recent Colorado summers, Lewin and others say the fate of the Colorado River is determined in the winter. While other factors like soil moisture and temperature play an important role in water availability and the likelihood of wildfire, snow is a key metric for understanding how dry summers will be.
As the ongoing drought pushes water issues more prominently into the public eye, she says it鈥檚 important to make sure the public fully understands data about snow and rivers.
鈥淵ou need to look at the context that you're reading or listening to it in because often there's a bigger picture,鈥� Lewin said. 鈥淭he data all tells a story, and it just depends on the context that we're reading it in.鈥�
This story is part of ongoing coverage of water in the West, produced by KUNC in Colorado and supported by the Walton Family Foundation. KUNC is solely responsible for its editorial coverage.
