Perhaps one of the longest and most drawn-out winters the West slope has seen in a while has now been very promising in eliminating any concerns of drought for the summer of 2019. With blizzards in March and weeks of cloudy days, the National Weather Service says that the Western Slope has seen “progressive patterns” of storms in the past few weeks, good news considering that last year the Colorado River ran low, thirsty for a plentiful winter.

Although the looks of this winter have been very promising to weather specialists, nothing is set in stone. In order for things to be fully “free” of the risk of drought, it will essentially boil down to the actual storms themselves that take place until things start to warm up this spring and summer. Megan Stackhouse, National Weather Service Meteorologist reports “It’s still a long term thing, but it’s just very promising what we’ve been seeing.” Currently the basins are reported to be 120% to 140% of normal snowpack for this year. “If we keep up this pattern we could see some significant improvement within the next couple of months,” Stackhouse adds.

As Stackhouse mentioned, it is a long term thing and precipitation levels this spring are expected to be above average. With that being said, the only way to see these results will be with time.