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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

CO Snowpack Levels Show A State Divided

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Monday, February 24, 2014   

DENVER - The latest measurements of Colorado's high-country snowpacks show a stark contrast, depending on location. The central and northern mountains have been hit with a series of potent winter storms, but a lot less snow has fallen in the southern part of the state.

Despite the diminished snowpack in the south, said Mage Hultstrand, who measures Colorado's snowpack for the U.S. Department of Agriculture, this winter has been generous with moisture.

"The last two water years were below normal," she said, "so this is a great turnaround to see an above-normal year after two drought years."

According to the latest USDA data, snowpack levels range from 142 percent of normal in the South Platte River basin to 82 percent of normal in the Upper Rio Grande.

Snowpack measured in February can give scientists a sense of what runoff will be like in the spring. However, Hultstrand, assistant snow survey supervisor for the USDA's Colorado Snow Survey Program. pointed out that 20 percent of Colorado's annual snowpack comes in March, so basins currently running at a deficit could recover quickly, "especially if the weather patterns they've seen this past month continue.

"The southwest portion of the state, and then also the Upper Rio Grande basins, both received well above normal accumulation during end of January, early part of February," she said. "They just need another couple of storms like that and they'll be right back to normal conditions."

Colorado's snowpack is monitored by a network of more than 100 sensors. They keep track of more than just depth. Hultstrand said they also measure overall moisture content of the snow.

A state snowpack map is online here.


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