Fwd: The (new) water year of our discontent
Loretta Lohman
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🥵 Aridification Watch 🐫 It was early June, and we sat out in the shade in our backyard in Silverton, Colorado, wearing short-sleeves and shorts and drinking cold beverages under a cloudless blue sky. That, in itself, made the day memorable. Blizzards are as likely on Memorial Day as barbecues in this mountain town, elevation 9,318 feet, and sweater-free days usually don’t come along until July. The winter of 2001-2002 had been unusually mild and a warm April and May had melted what little snow had fallen; the Animas River’s spring runoff had peaked at historically low levels a couple weeks earlier. I, for one, wasn’t too worried. By then it was understood that the climate was warming, and that it could wreak havoc on the planet, but the idea of rising sea levels and devastating heat waves felt pretty abstract in the Colorado high country. Besides, as an amateur historian, I had read accounts of similarly dry and warm winters from the San Juan Mountains’ past: In 1879, the snow was all melted from the highest peaks by May (giving way to the Lime Creek Burn that summer); sleighing was impossible” on Silverton’s streets during the 1890-91 winter; and the newspaper ran a photo of a water wagon suppressing dust on Greene Street on New Year’s Day, 1918, during “one of the most delightful winters ever experienced.” This, it seemed, was just another one of those occasional weird years, so we figured we might as well enjoy it. Then someone noticed what looked like puffy cumulonimbus cloud rising up in the gap formed by the Animas River gorge. It wasn’t a cloud at all, but a billowing tower of smoke from the Missionary Ridge Fire, ignited that afternoon on a slope about 35 miles south of where we sat. Over the coming weeks, the blaze would eat through 73,000 acres of parched scrub oak and aspen and conifer forest, along with 83 structures. It eclipsed the 26,000-acre Lime Creek Burn as the state’s largest wildfire on record, but lost the title to the Hayman Fire (138,114 acres) that was burning at the same time across the state. And it was then that we realized this was no normal abnormality, and that 2002 would go down as the Water Year of our Discontent: dry, smoky, and catastrophic for irrigators and river rafters alike. This year is shaping up to be even more dire. Indeed, with temperatures in Silverton climbing into the 60s this week, I’m sure a few people have shed some layers and soaked up the sun — in March. Now, however, we know that this is no anomaly, but part of a long-term trend toward aridification, most likely caused or at least exacerbated by climate change. Call it the “new normal” if you’d like, but just remember the words of Bruce Cockburn: “The trouble with normal is it always gets worse.” I wanted to wait until April to give this assessment, on the off chance that the weather might shift radically in the last days of March in a way that might give us all some hope. While anything’s still possible, I’ve seen enough to bet that, unfortunately, we may already have seen peak snowpack in many places, making this the driest water year on record by far. And besides, I wanted to get the spring runoff “predict the peak” streamflow contest going before, well, the streamflows actually peaked. A crappy snow year does not necessarily lead to a nasty fire season, since so many other factors come into play. The same can sort of be true about the peak of the spring runoff. That’s more about timing: A fast melt after a dry winter can result in a bigger, albeit short-lived, peak, than a slow melt of a relatively abundant snowpack. The river’s average flows across the entire water year are much more closely tied to snowpack, but those can also be affected by a big monsoon season. Still, looking back at similar years in the past can help with predicting flows this year. I’m going to focus on the Animas River in Durango, because it’s my home river, it is unimpeded by dams or major upstream diversions, and it is a good proxy for a lot of other Southwestern rivers, since its headwaters are located in the same mountain range as those of the Rio Grande, the Gunnison, the Dolores, the San Miguel, the San Juan, and the Uncompahgre rivers. If the runoff is weak in the Animas, it is also likely to be weak in all of those other rivers. The snowpack graph shows that the current heat wave has really taken a toll, and probably launched the spring runoff.
Here’s the temperature graph for the Animas watershed. You can see that it reached a record high for the date of 42.8° F. That doesn’t seem too warm until you consider that the median temperature for March 18 is about 25° F. Probably more significant than this one little blip is the fact that daily temperatures have far exceeded “normal” on dozens of days this winter. Also note the contrast with 2002 (the darker green line).
When you talk to Colorado climate folks and old-timers with good memories, you’ll often hear that the 1977 water year was even drier than 2002. Unfortunately, SNOTEL records typically go back only to the early 1980s, so it’s difficult to make a good apples-to-apples comparison. But by looking at the “natural flow” of the Colorado River, which is the calculated estimate of how much the river would carry without any human intervention, it appears that 1977 was, indeed, the driest winter across the Upper Colorado River Basin since at least 1900. However, historic Animas River flow data suggest that 2002 was actually drier in southwestern Colorado. Here’s the average annual daily flow for the Animas. Note that there are several years missing between 1898 and 1911; apparently the USGS did not record flows during those years.
Because that graph isn’t so easy to read, here’s a table showing the eleven lowest average daily flow water years. Note that in 1927 they only had 92 records, potentially skewing the results. The 2002 and 2018 water years were lower than in 1977. If snowpack levels correlate with annual average flows, then we could expect this year’s to be around 200 cfs, which is pretty damned dismal.
When I took a look at the peak streamflows for the Animas, I was a bit taken aback to see that in 2002 it topped out above 1,000 cfs, which is more than I would have expected.
Then I saw the date: It peaked in September, after the monsoon arrived, not in the spring. The 2002 spring runoff actually topped out on May 21 at 880 cfs, which was far lower than the 1977 spring peak. Based on all of that, my Animas River peak streamflow prediction is a bit wacky, but I’m standing by it: It will top out at 700 cfs on April 15. The rest of the Land Desk community will have a chance to predict the peak starting next week, when I’ll announce the terms, the river gauges in the contest, and the prizes for the winner(s). Most likely it will only be open to paid subscribers, so the time to upgrade is now! We might as well get even more depressed. Here’s the snowpack graph for the Upper Colorado River Basin, showing 2026, 2002, and 2018 — i.e. the dismal years. Note that the spring melt has begun in earnest. If it continues at this rate, runoff will be over by early May.
And here’s the natural flow graph for Lees Ferry on the Colorado River. Natural flow is the calculation of how much water would be in the river at that point if there were no human diversions or consumptive use upstream. If you compare this to the historic streamflows on the Animas River, you’ll notice that there is a correlation, but it’s not direct. For example, 1977 was the driest year on record for the Colorado River as a whole, with a total volume of just 5.4 million acre-feet, which is about half what the Lower Basin alone was using throughout the 1990s.
The ten lowest years on record are:
It looks like we could be in that 5.4 MAF territory once again. That wasn’t a huge deal in 1977, since it was an anomaly. It is a big deal now. And just so you know, it’s not just the Colorado River watershed that’s in trouble. Even California, which got pummeled by atmospheric rivers, is losing its snow rapidly.
📖 Reading (and watching) Room 🧐The Upper Basin and Lower Basin may not have come up with a deal yet on how to save the Colorado River’s massive plumbing system, but they are looking for solutions. One of them is creating an Upper Basin conservation pool. Like a lot of issues related to the rivers, it’s a slightly complicated one. But Heather Sackett of Aspen Journalism gives a really great rundown. She’s always a must-read for those looking to understand what’s going on with the Colorado. 🗺️ Messing with Maps 🧭The current heat wave is breaking records across the West. Here’s a little sampling:
If you want a quick and comprehensive look where those records were broken during the last day, week, or month, check out coolwx.com/record. In the side panel you can click on the United States and the time period you wish to see and it will show an animation of all of the records. It looks kind of like this:
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©
2026 Jonathan P. Thompson
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