Last week we posted an update on the SNOTEL reports for snowpack in the San Isabel region. Since then portions of the mountains have received 3.9 inches of precipitation, which is probably well over 3 feet of snow.

Last weekend’s storm brought welcome relief to the scant snowpack in the San Isabel region. The NRCS SNOTEL at the South Colony site in the Sangre de Cristo Range shows 1.9 inches of snow water equivalent, and about 2 feet of snow. Snow water equivalent measures the water content in the snow to give a more accurate assessment of snowpack. As most Coloradans know, the snow in April is much wetter and heavier than the snow in January. As such, the snow water equivalent in a foot of snow in April would probably be higher than a foot of snow in January.

In December 2014, the Colorado Supreme Court announced its opinion on the change of water use case involving the H20 Ranch.[ii]  The H2O Ranch was historically one of the most productive hay ranches in the Wet Mountain Valley with excellent water rights. In 2007, the city of Fountain and Widefield Water and Sanitation District (“Widefield”) purchased the H20 Ranch with the intent to dry-up the H2O Ranch and change the water rights to municipal use (“buy and dry”). A change of use case was filed in Water Court Division 2, and has been in litigation ever since.