Wyoming has seen a decent amount of snow in the first week of April, but meteorologists says it’s officially too little, too late to save the state’s historically low snowpack, which has been melting for weeks.

The spring storm brought much-needed moisture to several dry spots across the Cowboy State. After a miserable March, the first week of April has been what meteorologists says they’ve have been hoping for since November: a normal week.

“All of the mountains, from the Snowies to the Bighorns, got the equivalent of 1 to 2 inches of water,” said Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day. “There was nearly three-quarters of an inch in the Red Desert. Laramie got over half an inch of moisture. There were some good precipitation totals.”

That improved Wyoming’s snow water equivalent map slightly, but anyone looking for comfort there won’t find it. 

Tony Bergantino, the director of the Water Resources Data System and the Wyoming State Climate Office, finally said the word that describes this past winter’s miserable snowpack.

“I guess you could say that it’s ‘unprecedented,’” he said. “We have not seen snowpack this low, across the state, in the 30-plus years that I’ve been here, and it’s historically low even further than that.”

Last Week’s Weather

A surge of cold air and precipitation caused chaos on Wyoming’s highways with this latest blast of snow, a true spring storm that was desperately needed across the state.

The mountains did best, as usual, but even they needed the boost.

“Most of the snowfall amounts were between 10 and 15 inches in the Bighorns, and right around 12 inches for the Tetons and the Wind River Range,” said meteorologist Jason Straub with the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Riverton. “That’s roughly the equivalent of 1 inch of water.”

Millions of people across the Western U.S. would have liked a lot more, but beggars can’t be choosers, he said.

Straub said Wyoming’s mountain ranges are in fairly good shape. It’s the lower elevations that are struggling the most.

“Most of the mountainous areas are sitting pretty close to normal for this time of year, and have been most of the winter,” he said. “The lower elevations are well below average, and we have a significant to severe drought starting to develop across most of the state.”

That wouldn’t be the worst-case scenario going into the wettest months of the year, but March came and went with well-above-average temperatures and well-below-average precipitation, which has had a dramatic impact on Wyoming’s snowpack.

Serious Snowpack Slump

In December, the snowpack wasn’t at its best, but many basins were well above their seasonal averages. Those circumstances changed dramatically in the last three months, meteorologists say.

Most of Wyoming’s snowpacks reach their peaks in early April. The cutoff tends to be April 1, when the snow water equivalent starts to decline as temperatures rise and snow becomes less frequent.

Bergantino said Wyoming is well past its peak.

“We hit peaks anywhere between 12 and 45 days early this season,” he said. “None of those basins, except the Yellowstone Basin in northwest Wyoming, even reached their median snowpack before they peaked.”

According to 50 manual snow measurements submitted to the Wyoming State Climate Office, Bergantino said 28 indicate that 2025-2026 was the lowest snowpack in Wyoming’s recorded history.

An additional seven of those 50 were tied for the lowest snowpack on record, and those records go back a long way.

“We’re talking, 90-plus years of records for some of these places,” Bergantino said. “A lot of areas are either tied to the bottom or have gone below it.”

Prolonging The Agony

Wyoming could cope with a below-average snowpack, assuming temperatures were cold enough to keep it intact for as long as possible, but Bergantino said that the temperature threshold was crossed weeks ago.

“That’s the double-whammy,” he said. “We didn’t get the volume of snow for the peak, and it started melting early.”

The chances of a dramatic rebound in snowpack were slim even before the record-breaking March temperatures. Now in early April, Bergantino is looking and hoping for the bare minimum.

“It’d be nice to get the basins above the historical minimum,” he said. “I don’t see any basin reaching its seasonal peak, but we might get enough to shoot above the minimum line. Even that isn’t a guarantee.”

Even more precipitation could be a double-edged sword for the current state of the snowpack. As it gets warmer, the chance of snow decreases, even at the highest elevations.

“Extended forecasts are showing above-average precipitation for the next eight to 14 days, but temperatures are also above the median,” he said. “If we get more precipitation, you run the risk of what form that precipitation takes. 

“Does it come down as snow, or does it come down as rain and chew up even some more of that lower elevation snowpack?”

Bergantino wasn’t complaining about last week’s weather. Something’s always better than nothing, but that something wasn’t enough to change anything.

“I would say it prolonged the agony a little bit,” he said. “It helped. It moved things forward a little bit, but it definitely did not cure anything.”

Will It Get Better?

After reviewing all the current and historical data, even the best-case scenario isn’t looking great. Bergantino cautions Wyomingites to prepare for what’s ahead.

“If things don’t turn around this spring, you’re going to be looking at water supply issues this summer,” he said. “Most of Wyoming’s basins are running below their minimum snowpack, and most of the others are bouncing off the top of their all-time lows.”

Bergantino added that Wyoming could already be primed for a disastrous fire season. Many plants have started to leaf out and flower, either in confusion or desperation.

If those plants don’t get enough moisture, they’ll desiccate. That’ll leave lots of dry branches and dead leaves to feed any fire.

“That’s one of the really concerning things right now,” he said. “If everything greens up and dries out, you’re adding a lot of fuel for fires.”

Straub said the NWS’s short-range outlook is favoring above-average moisture. At this point, any wetness is welcome.

“April and May are when Wyoming gets 25% to 50% of its moisture,” he said. “Right now, the outlooks are looking pretty close to normal. Any of that precipitation will be very beneficial to bring some moisture, keep the reservoirs full, and things like that.”

There’s another storm system anticipated this week. Straub said it’ll arrive late Tuesday, but won’t have the same potency as the systems that stretched across Wyoming last week.

“It’s mainly going to bring around 2 to 4 inches of snowfall to the mountains of northwest Wyoming,” he said. “Most of the lower elevations will see a sprinkle, at best. Accumulation will be minimal, but it’s something.”

Cold Comfort?

Bergantino couldn’t find a modern precedent for what Wyoming’s experiencing in terms of below-average, earlier-melting snowpack. The only comparable year happened long before his tenure at the Wyoming State Climate Office.

“A lot of records still have 1977 as the lowest snowpack,” he said.

That’s somewhat vindicating for Day. 

He’s classified the 2025-2026 winter season as a “once-in-a-generation” winter that hasn’t been experienced since the 1970s, with the 1977-1978 season as the lowest point on record.

Day isn’t ready to throw in the towel yet. He’s not anticipating a meteorological Hail Mary that’ll revitalize the state’s snowpack, but there have been some dramatic turnarounds.

“I’ve seen some big comebacks in snowpack before,” he said, adding that, “2011 was one of the years where there was a tremendous amount of mountain snow in April, and last week was great. We have broken the streak.”

Day always finds hope in history. April has done a lot to change Wyoming’s fortunes going into a season of severe drought, and it might do the same this year.

“If you go back and look at some of the bigger snowstorms in Wyoming’s history, a lot of them happened in the last 10 days of April,” he said. “You get these bigger, slower-moving storms that tend to cover more real estate, and that’s what we really need.”

As usual, Day has an analogy for what’s happened and how everything’s shaping up.

“It’s like we haven’t been on the interstate since November,” he said. “We’ve been on side roads, dirt roads, and secondary highways trying to get on track. “

In that analogy, Day said last week’s weather was a possible “exit ramp.” 

He’s not promising anything, but that weather was more of what meteorologists would expect in Wyoming for the first week of April, one of Wyoming’s wettest months.

“I don’t think we’re on the interstate yet, but maybe we’re getting on to the entrance ramp, and hopefully we can merge into traffic,” he said.

Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.

A Republican lawmaker from Laramie County says a legislative committee he co-chairs will be taking a close look at data centers in Wyoming, focusing on electricity  consumption.

Committee Co-Chaired By Sen. Chris Rothfuss

Rep. Daniel Singh is the House Chair of the Select Committee on Blockchain, Financial Technology And Digital Innovation Technology. The Senate Chair is Senator Chris Rothfuss [D-Albany County].

On his legislative Facebook page, Singh wrote recently “We will be taking a serious look at data centers and electricity usage. As more large scale computing operations come into Wyoming, we have to make sure these major electricity users do not affect the availability or cost of power for everyday Wyoming families, workers, and businesses. We will also be exploring the cooling technologies used by data centers. Management Council made clear that conversations specifically about water usage should be handled by the Select Water Committee. In response, our committee will focus on the broader category of cooling systems and the technologies that can reduce reliance on water.”

According to Baxtel.com there are currently 21 data centers in Cheyenne.

In a Saturday interview on the “Weekend In Wyoming” program on am 650 KGAB, Singh went into more detail on the topic. In regard to water usage. Singh said there are options that centers can use to avoid using water, including using air cooling or other liquids as coolants. ”I hope that these tech companies are getting the picture that if these people want to do business in states like Wyoming, that they need to respect the wishes of the people that live here. So they can’t be using insane amounts of water.”

Singh says the state could impose rules on water usage for the centers if need be.

In regard to electricity, Singh says he will be pushing for requirements that the centers use “behind the meter power.” That basically means requiring data center companies to generate their own electricity ”preferably using traditional fuels, minerals from Wyoming.”

While some see data centers as a growing industry that can contribute to the economy, many people in the Cheyenne area in particular are concerned about the centers using too much water and/or electricity and causing water and electric bills to skyrocket for everyone else.

One vocal critic in Cheyenne is Rick Coppinger, a former candidate for mayor who remains active in local politics. Coppinger told Townsquare Media on Monday afternoon:

”I understand that they say that a lot of these data centers are using sealed systems for cooling or as well as using glycol systems for cooling or other agents. I think you’ll find that even though they’re using sealed water systems you’ll find that they are still going through an about 1,000,000 gallons a year per gigabyte hour. Also, when the federal government and the state government have to intervene to tell us that the people will not have to pay higher electric bills because of these #DATA centers forces me to be very concerned.”

Hear Rep. Daniel Singh ”Weekend In Wyoming” Interview Here.

At the mouth of Sinks Canyon near Lander, Wyoming, the tiny community of Borner’s Garden had thrived in the late 1800s. 

It consisted of a schoolhouse, post office, and a few homesteading families. One of these families were John and Lena Borner who were raising their six children in this rural community that had been named after John’s fruit trees and large garden.

Their son Frank Edward remembered as a small boy hiding behind his mother’s skirts. His dad was gone and a woman had ridden up to the porch of their cabin. He later learned that she was his Aunt Calamity Jane.

Jan Cerney wrote about the incident in “Calamity Jane and Her Siblings: The Saga of Lena and Elijah Canary.”

“He recalled that his mother Lena asked her what she was doing there and what she wanted,” Cerney wrote. “Lena told Calamity to leave and never come back. Apparently, at that time, Lena had had it with her sister Martha.”

Martha Jane Canary, more widely known as Calamity Jane, was Lena’s big sister and her uncouth ways were not always welcome in Lena’s quiet home.

Another time, Cerney said that Hannah was the child who mimicked Aunt Calamity’s swear words, distressing John Borner to the point that he again told Calamity to never come back.

Future Brother-in-Law

Bill Wilkinson, a great-nephew of Martha Jane said in an interview to author Ellen Crago Mueller that his Aunt Calamity Jane was at the mining camps on South Pass in Wyoming around 1870-71. 

It was while here that she first met freighter John G. Borner, her future brother-in-law.

Borner had been badly hurt and broken his leg according to family accounts. He was taken to the rooming house where Martha Jane Canary was working, and the young woman set his leg.

Jean Mathisen, in a December 1996 True West article, “Calamity’s Sister,” said that Canary asked Borner if she could make the trip to Salt Lake for him to check on her brother and sister, Lena and Elijah, known as “Lige.”

“She supposedly made two trips in the next six weeks and brought Borner’s customary load of goods to South Pass,” Mathisen wrote. “After his leg healed, Borner resumed his trips to Salt Lake and made the acquaintance of Lena and Lige Canary.”

John Borner was born in Saxony, Germany, in 1835 and, after immigrating to America, had been injured in the Civil War. Borner later came and joined the Wyoming gold rush at South Pass in 1869.

In 1872, Borner, Ernest Hornecker and Jake Frey moved to an area known as Chief Washakie’s horse pasture, near the mouth of Sinks Canyon at the base of the Wind River Mountains.

The men squatted on what was then Indian land and took up claims. Chief Washakie knew the men according to Mathisen and had encouraged them to settle in the valley to help provide protection for his Eastern Shoshone band from his enemies, the Sioux and Arapahos.

By the next year Borner was building on his own claim in a rich meadowland near the Popo Agie River.

Building A Home

“It was John Borner that brought Lena, Calamity Jane’s sister, to this country to be a companion of the Indian agent on the reservation,” Jack States of Lander told Cowboy State Daily.

States’ father went to school at Borner’s Garden and had shared with States’ the tall tales that swirled around the family of Calamity Jane. States said that at times it is difficult to separate fact from fiction, but it is well known that Martha Canary spent a lot of time at Borner’s Garden and Lander to be near her sister.

Although Borner had originally brought Lena Canary to the area as a companion at Fort Washakie, romance had blossomed between the by-now eighteen-year-old girl and Borner, who was over twenty years her senior, and the job was short-lived. John Borner and Lena Pauline Canary were married in 1875.

Lander Museum Director Randy Wise said Borner’s Garden where Borner brought his young wife was a beautiful area below the canyon proper.

“According to the historic documents, it was one of the few places in the whole state where you could actually grow apples and plums,” Wise said. “They grew currants and gooseberries and things like that up there.”

The Borners became the parents of seven children over the next nine years: May Rebecca, Tobias (Tobe), Frank Edward, Theresa Theodosa, Hannah, Bertha Pauline and William Frederick.

“At its height, there might have been maybe 40 people living in Borner’s Garden,” Wise said. “It was never a formal town and just one of many little communities that dotted the region.”

Aunt Calamity

Accounts differ as to whether Borner and Lena’s infamous sister got along, although a younger brother of Ernest and Mart’s, Albert Hornecker, remembered that Calamity would travel by in a buggy on her way to visit her sister Lena when she knew Borner would be gone.

Tobe Borner related in the September 1941 Basin Republican Rustler that his father had no use for Calamity and felt she was a poor influence on his growing family. However, Tobe also said that Martha Jane was present at his birth in May of 1877, so she continued to visit despite the misgivings of her brother-in-law.

According to Mathisen, old-timers in Lander, the community that grew up on the site of old Camp Brown, stated that Calamity Jane and her sister Lena ran a laundry together in a small log building that sat on Main Street, between Second and Third, in early-day Lander.

“Calamity spent a fair amount of time in Wyoming and this part of Wyoming in particular,” Wise said. “When Calamity was sober, she would help her sister at the laundry in town.”

John Borner’s dislike to Calamity continued to grow, mostly because of her drinking and swearing. Cerney said that Calamity wasn’t afraid of Borner and visited her sister when John Borner wasn’t around. The Hornecker neighbors saw Calamity pass by in a buggy on her way to the Borner place when John Borner was not home. Tom Bell, a local Lander historian, told Cerney that Calamity often stayed at the Borner School when she came to visit her sister since she was not welcome in the Borner home.

A Ghost Community

Tragedy visited the Borner family in October of 1888. Lena Canary Borner, 31, passed away after suffering ill health for two years from injuries she had sustained from being kicked by a cow.

Her obituary in the October 17, 1888, issue of the Fremont Clipper stated, “She was one of the most industrious women in the valley and one whom all her acquaintances held in the highest respect. Her pride was in her children and her home.”

Heartbroken and tired of fighting with his neighbors and former friends over irrigation pipes, John Borner moved his family to Greybull the following spring. He had built a cabin at what would someday be the site of Greybull, Wyoming, and later added corrals and barns.

In 1888 the Wyoming Territorial Legislature authorized a Poor Farm for the soon-to-be state. The trustees bought Borner’s ranch, and in the spring of 1889, Borner loaded up his wagons along with his children and moved to his new land claim. He had 100 head of cattle, a herd of horses, and a herd of mules he had acquired from the government.

A special June 6, 1974, edition of the Greybull Standard stated that Borner was “a prosperous and very intelligent rancher from the Lander County. He picked Greybull as the site of his new home because of his belief that it was an ideal location. Two rivers flowed into the Big Horn within the space of a mile, the Greybull River and Shell Creek. Between the mouths of these two streams, he felt should be an ideal site for a town.”

He never remarried and his children adored him. Aunt Calamity Jane would occasionally visit but had mostly gone on her way to create myths about her life. She passed away in 1903 when she was 51.

At Borner’s Garden, only memories of Calamity Jane and her sister’s family are left. The schoolhouse that Calamity Jane stayed in was moved to the Lander museum and the old homes have fallen down long ago.

“She had quite a lively career when she left this place,” States said. “We have a number of stories from people who knew her when she was here but that part of the history sort of borders on fantasy.”

Contact Jackie Dorothy at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com

Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.