Colorado’s mountains have likely already hit peak snowpack, and record-high heat forecast for the coming days will kick off widespread melting even at high elevations — weeks ahead of normal.
A heat dome that’s expected to hover over the state and the Mountain West through Saturday is forecast to bring temperatures into the 80s at lower elevations and into the 50s and 60s at higher elevations. The heat this week follows the warmest winter recorded in Colorado since records began in 1895.
“It’s possible that many areas of the state at high elevations have already seen peak snowpack,” Peter Goble, the assistant state climatologist, told the Colorado Water Conservation Board’s Water Conditions Monitoring Committee on Tuesday.
The temperatures expected from the heat dome will be high enough to spur melting, said Brian Domonkos, a hydrologist with the Colorado office of the federal Natural Resources Conservation Service. Statewide, snowpack depth typically peaks around April 8.
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The National Weather Service forecast for a point near Loveland Pass — at an elevation of 11,020 feet — shows overnight lows are not expected to drop below freezing until Sunday night. Daytime highs could hit 60 degrees.
A graph from the U.S. Department of Agriculture shows Colorado’s statewide snowpack level (darkest line) compared to records that date back to 1986. (Courtesy of U.S. Department of Agriculture)
Wolf Creek Pass, located at nearly 11,000 feet in southern Colorado, is also not forecast to reach freezing temperatures overnight this week.
The record heat is expected to shrink an already anemic snowpack. Statewide snowpack sat at 59% of the median for this time of year on Wednesday, the lowest recorded since records began in 1986. Some river basins in southern Colorado — including the Rio Grande, the San Juan, the Animas and the Arkansas — had less than half of normal snowpack on Wednesday.
“We have very little winter left,” Domonkos said. “There’s essentially no chance for us to get back to normal snowpack.”
Colorado’s mountains and streams will begin to see increased water flows from the melting this week, according to the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center.
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Flows in the Yampa River in Steamboat Springs will likely more than double in the next seven days, from 124 cubic feet per second on Wednesday to more than 400 cfs late next week. The Animas River in Durango could hop from winter flows hovering around 300 cfs to more than 1,000 cfs by the end of next week.
Those flows are still far lower than peak runoff flows that will come later this spring and summer. But expected extended warm temperatures, paired with the “extremely grim” snowpack, mean those peak flows will also be lower than normal, said Cody Moser, a hydrologist with the Colorado Basin River Forecast Center, at a briefing Wednesday.
Across the Colorado River Basin — which includes a large swath of western Colorado — those flows are expected to be at or below 70% of the average recorded between 1991 and 2020, he said.
Across the Colorado River Basin, “I think it’s highly likely that we’ve already seen peak snowpack,” Moser said.
The vast majority of Colorado’s water supply comes from its winter snowpack. The lack of snow has water providers across the state enacting drought restrictions or preparing to do so.
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Denver Water — which serves 1.5 million people across the Front Range — will likely skip declaring a drought watch and instead skip to the next step by imposing Stage 1 water restrictions, Nathan Elder, the utility’s water supply manager, said Tuesday.
Those restrictions — last implemented in 2013 — would require mandatory reductions in outdoor water use.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on Tuesday activated the state Drought Task Force to address the dire conditions. The task force will monitor conditions across the state and recommend mitigation efforts to Polis. The governor last activated the task force in 2020.
If conditions continue to deteriorate, Polis could declare a drought emergency and seek federal disaster assistance.
“Colorado is experiencing the warmest year so far in our 131-year record, and one of the driest,” Polis said in a news release. “Activating the Drought Task Force will help ensure we are protecting one of our most precious resources by closely tracking impacts, supporting communities, and coordinating better as we prepare for the year ahead.”
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Martin Necas, Nathan MacKinnon and the Avalanche have had a lot to celebrate this season. Jeff Curry / Imagn Images
The Colorado Avalanche clinched the Presidents’ Trophy with a 3-1 win over the Calgary Flames on Thursday night.
This is the fourth time in franchise history the Avalanche have finished atop the NHL’s regular-season standings. They also won the Presidents’ Trophy in 1997, 2001 and 2021.
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Colorado will be looking to buck a recent trend of disappointing postseasons for Presidents’ Trophy winners. Nine of the last 10 teams to win the trophy have lost in the first two rounds of the playoffs, and no winner has won the Stanley Cup since the 2012-13 Chicago Blackhawks.
Prior to that, the Presidents’ Trophy winner had fared relatively well in the postseason. From 1999 to 2008, four of the nine Presidents’ Trophy winners went on to win it all, including Colorado’s 2000-2001 team led by Joe Sakic, Peter Forsberg and Patrick Roy.
Colorado has been the NHL’s dominant team from start to finish in this regular season. It is only the sixth team in league history to hold first place from Nov. 1 through the end of the season. The team has been fueled by stars Nathan MacKinnon and Cale Makar, who will both be in the conversation for postseason individual awards. Goaltender Scott Wedgewood has been a pleasant surprise, leading the NHL in save percentage and goals-against average.
The Avalanche will now enter the postseason as the top seed and will face the winner of the second wild-card spot in the Western Conference. That allows Colorado to avoid the dreaded 2-3 matchup in the Central Division that will pit the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild, two of the league’s best teams, against each other in the opening round.
Colorado has 114 points with four games remaining, with a chance to reach 120 points for the first time in franchise history. Only 12 teams have reached that mark in NHL history, with the most recent being the 2022-23 Bruins (135 points).
Two additional cases of measles have been confirmed in Weld County. According to the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment and Weld County Public Health, the new cases are in two unvaccinated adults.
Health officials said both people are household contacts of a previously confirmed case that is not linked to the Broomfield schools outbreak. However, officials said they are notifying the public about a potential exposure location in El Paso County related to those cases. Health officials told CBS Colorado last month that the outbreak at the schools had forced 80 students, staff and volunteers to stay away from the campuses due to their vaccination status.
CDPHE said the known exposure location is the Chick-fil-A at the Citadel Crossing Shopping Center located at 505 N. Academy Blvd. in Colorado Springs, March 25 between 5 p.m. and 8 p.m. Symptoms may occur through April 15.
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CDPHE said while the measles, mumps, and rubella vaccine is highly effective, breakthrough cases can occur, especially following prolonged exposure within a household. Breakthrough cases typically experience milder illness and are less likely to spread the virus to others.
Measles is a highly contagious disease. Getting the MMR vaccine is the best way to protect yourself, your family, and your community.
Additional Information from the CDPHE:
What to do if you were exposed
Watch for symptoms: Measles symptoms begin with fever, cough, runny nose, and red eyes, followed by a rash that usually starts several days later on the face and spreads. If you were at the location at the listed date and time, you may have been exposed. Watch for symptoms for 21 days after exposure. Monitoring for symptoms is especially critical for people who have not been vaccinated with the MMR vaccine, particularly infants under one year of age who are not routinely recommended for the vaccine. If you develop symptoms, call CDPHE (720-653-3369) or your local public health agency right away.
Call before you go: If you need medical care, do not delay. Call your health care provider, urgent care, or emergency department before going in, and tell them you may have been exposed to measles. This helps prevent further spread.
More information
Visit the CDPHE measles webpage, which includes information about symptoms, transmission, and vaccine recommendations, 2026 Colorado measles case information, and a current list of exposure locations.
Colorado Parks and Wildlife will consider a potential ban on the commercial sale of furbearers at its July commission meeting.
The idea for a ban on the commercial sale, barter or trade of furs from furbearer species — a classification that includes 17 wildlife species like foxes, beavers, coyotes, bobcats and other mesocarnivores — came from a citizen petition brought to Parks and Wildlife last year by a Colorado representative of the Center of Biological Diversity.
The commission approved the petition in March, against the recommendation of Parks and Wildlife staff, initiating a formal rulemaking process on the proposed ban.
Now, Parks and Wildlife is seeking public input on the proposal to inform staff’s development of an issue paper that will be presented to the commission during its July 16-17 meetings. The agency will be accepting input from the public through May 3 on EngageCPW.org.
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The proposed ban — and agency’s overall management of these 17 species — has been a topic of much debate at commission meetings for many months.
In Colorado, furbearers can be hunted with the purchase of a $10 permit available to individuals who purchase a small game license. In its 2024-25 fiscal year, the agency sold 19,620 furbearer permits. While there are currently no limits on the number that a furbearer permit-holder can kill of these species, the agency has had initial discussions about potentially imposing a daily limit.
Samantha Miller, a Grand Lake resident and the senior carnivore campaigner for the Center for Biological Diversity who submitted the petition, has referred to the ban of commercial sale for furbearer furs as a “common sense change” and “low bar” that aligns furbearers with how Colorado manages other wildlife species. Miller and other supporters of the ban argue that allowing the commercial sale of furs incentivizes overharvesting of the animals and threatens overall biodiversity.
In her recommendation to the commission, Laura Clellan, the newly appointed Parks and Wildlife director, wrote that the agency’s main rationale for denying the ban on commercial fur sales is that the petition “lacks solid evidence that commercial fur sales drive harvest levels in Colorado.”
Opponents of the petition supported the agency’s stance and have argued that the state’s current furbearer management works and is backed by science. Many claim that the proposed commercial ban represents a greater attack on hunting and trapping, which represents an important tradition in Colorado and supports conservation.
