Tracking snowfall throughout the year in Colorado often has its booms and busts, and that’s been true for the start of the 2024-2025 snowpack season.

Denver Water pays close attention to the amount of snow that falls in the mountains west of Denver because that’s where the utility catches the snowflakes that make up the water supply for 1.5 million people in the metro area.

In particular, Denver Water’s supply comes from the snow that falls in the Upper South Platte River Basin and the Upper Colorado River Basin — the mountainous areas of Boulder, Douglas, Grand, Jefferson, Park and Summit counties.

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November 2024 saw so much snow in those counties that by Thanksgiving, the snowpack in areas where Denver Water catches snow was up to 167% and 160% of normal in the Upper Colorado and Upper South Platte River basins respectively. The numbers ranked the November snowpacks as third- and seventh-best over the past 41 years of recordkeeping at Denver Water. 

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Mother Nature unfortunately went on a holiday slumber after Thanksgiving and delivered very little snow in the mountains during the first three weeks of December. During that time, the snowpack tumbled to 101% and 85% of normal in the upper Colorado and South Platte basins.

9News meteorologist Corey Reppenhagen noted Dec. 24, 2024, that the first three weeks of December were the driest time for that month the state had seen in 37 years. He described the dramatic snowfall swing in this report.

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Just as skiers and water supply managers were starting to wonder if it would snow again, the storm clouds rolled back in to deliver a very welcome holiday surprise between Christmas and New Year’s Day. 

“We often see significant fluctuations in snowfall during the year, so it can feel like a boom or bust pattern,” said Nathan Elder, Denver Water’s manager of water supply. “This season we are seeing that from month to month. November was a great boom and then December started out as a bust but recovered in the final few days.” 

As for January, Elder said 2025's snowpack is starting out great, continuing to bring the boom seen at the end of 2024.

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"At 123% of normal, Colorado River snowpack is the best we've seen for early January since 2011, which was a banner year," Elder said. "And above Dillon Reservoir, the Blue River basin has some of the highest snowpack in the state. It's at 135% of normal! Our South Platte basin also is keeping pace with normal levels at 102%."

Elder said the first week in January brought more than 50% of the snow-water equivalent accumulation that is typically seen during the entire month, great to be ahead of schedule to start 2025!

A fun way to get a general idea of how Denver Water’s snowpack is doing is to follow the snow reports at the ski areas in Denver Water’s collection system, which are Arapahoe Basin, Breckenridge, Copper Mountain, Keystone and Winter Park.

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Those ski areas all reported more than 2 feet of snow between Christmas and New Year’s Day, with Arapahoe Basin reporting 32 inches!

As the year ended, the snowpack in the Upper Colorado River Basin and Upper South Platte River basins stood at 122% and 107% of normal respectively.

“We share the same love of snow as the skiers and snowboarders and enjoy a good powder day as much as they do,” Elder said. “The storms at the end of December were a welcome change after the dry spell. In terms of our snowpack, we’re starting off 2025 in good shape and hope to see more boom months ahead.”

While skiers like seeing how much snow falls, Denver Water is more concerned with what’s called the “snow water equivalent,” also known as SWE. This is a measurement of the amount of water packed into the snow. 

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Dry, fluffy snow is great for skiing but does not have as much water content as the heavy, wet snow typically seen in March and April.

To give you an example of how snow depth and snow water equivalent compare, while the ski areas saw around 2 feet of snow in the Upper Colorado River Basin between Dec. 25-31, the snow held around 1.5 inches of SWE.

Mountain snowpack is critical because when the snow melts in the spring it flows down streams and replenishes Denver Water’s reservoirs. At the end of 2024, Denver Water’s reservoir supply stood at 83% full, which is average for that time of year.

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Elder said the snowpack peaks in mid-to-late April, so there’s still about four months to go in the snow collection season.

“It’s still early in the snow collection season, but we’re happy with where we’re at so far,” Elder said. “It’s not unusual to see some dry spells throughout the winter mixed in with the storms. We’ll keep watching and doing our snow dances along with all the skiers as we see how the rest of winter plays out in 2025.”