When the state climatologist warns he’s not going to sugarcoat the drought we’re in, expect a bitter pill.
The traditional April 1 water outlook from Colorado Climate Center’s Russ Schumacher puts the water equivalent in the dismal snowpack at just 22% of the historic median for the date, far lower than any year they’ve recorded under the current system.
Did you know it was 99 degrees in Burlington, at the Kansas border, on March 25? That had escaped us, too. But Schumacher cites that shocker to underline how quickly the sun blasted out the statewide snowpack in the last two weeks of March.
The average liquid water stored in Colorado’s snow was down to 3.1 inches on April 1. That’s less than 40% of what remained on that date in the previous lowest year, 2012, when 9.1 inches of water equivalent was still left in the pack.
“It’s now safe to conclude that this has been the worst year for Colorado snowpack in recorded history,” Schumacher wrote in his blog Thursday.
CSU mapped the places in Colorado (deepest red) that recorded seven days of record heat for March during this past March of 2026. (Colorado Climate Center)There are a few snowballs of hope left, way back in the freezer behind the Bomb Pops and the chicken nuggets. While the assessment stops March 31, April is starting off fairly April-y, Schumacher noted. There was some snow in the mountains April 1, and temperature and storm forecasts for the month show a more typical spring pattern of cool periods that help preserve what’s left in the snowbanks.
Still, the Climate Center acknowledges it’s hard to look beyond the visceral impact of the red-hot maps they are showing around. The meteorologists mapped all the places in Colorado that experienced a full seven days this March that were hotter than any other March days recorded for the past 75 years.
“That’s right: a whole week’s worth,” Schumacher wrote.
The map, as you can see here, is disturbingly, deeply red.
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