Colorado Snowpack Still Far Below Normal
Hopes Pinned On April Snows
POSTED: 2:52 pm MST March 31,
2004
DENVER -- Colorado's snowpack is below normal for this time of the year and officials are pinning their hopes on good snow in April.Wednesday, snowpack experts were on Guanella Pass, measuring the snow there. The measurement is combined with others on other passes and put into a database to determine where Colorado stands in terms of snow.As of Wednesday, the South Platte River Basin is at 62 percent of average for this time of the year. The upper Colorado River Basin is at 69 percent. Those two basins supply Denver Water and more than one-million people around the metro area.
The best showing is from the Gunnison River Basin, which had snowpack at 73 percent of normal.More than 80 percent of the water Colorado uses year-round comes from the winter snowpack. April is one of Colorado's two snowiest months.The term snowpack refers to the water that comes from melting snow, not the actual snow totals.
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