The snowstorm forecast to hit most of Colorado Friday and Saturday could improve soil moisture, reservoir levels and stream flows.

But it isn’t expected to reach the parts of the state that need it most, and it’s not really good news for farmers, either, according to presentations Thursday to the state’s Water Availability Task Force.

The group, made up of state and federal water officials and representatives of water utilities, reviewed the latest snowmelt, reservoir, temperature and precipitation data.

The group concluded the snow is melting too fast, but the storm forecasted for the weekend will help. However, it won’t help everyone, experts said.

The forecast adds “insult to injury” for agriculture producers who have been dealing with drought and will get hit over the weekend with a freeze that could damage winter wheat crops, according to a report from Joel Schneekloth of Colorado State University. 

State Climatologist Russ Schumacher of the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University talked about the effects of the windy April on soil moisture. April is traditionally the windiest month of the year, he said, but it reached new levels in some parts of the state, notably the Eastern Plains, which is already facing growing problems with drought. The San Luis Valley and parts of the Western Slope are also now suffering from overly dry soils, he said.

“In a lot of places, it was just relentless,” Schumacher said.

The bottom line is that wind, combined with a lot of sun, little humidity and no rain for most of the state in April meant the soil, just as planting season is getting underway, was too dry. May’s warmer than average temperatures have compounded the problem – Schumacher said on average the state has been about six degrees warmer than normal. Most of the state is reporting below average rainfall since early April, with the worst conditions in southeastern Colorado, Schumacher reported.

That part of the state sees little in the way of winter precipitation, the expert said, adding that he’s hopeful that the deficits could be made up in what’s traditionally the wettest time of year for southeastern Colorado – the summer monsoon season.

Snowpack also got a lot of attention from Schumacher and from hydrologist Brian Domonkos at the Natural Resources Conservation Service, part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

At a measuring station near Wolf Creek Pass, part of the state where winter snows are melting the fastest, the rate of snowmelt was an inch a day for 30 days, Schumacher said. That’s the fastest snowmelt in history, he said.

The news got worse for south central Colorado, including the San Luis Valley and the Rio Grande River basin, where snowmelt peaked on May 8. That’s a month early, the experts noted.

“At least the water was there,” Schumacher said.

And drought is back – and bad, the experts said. Almost a quarter of the state is back to extreme drought conditions in the D3-D4 range. Just a week ago, only 6% of the state was in that extreme drought range. But it’s slightly better than a year ago, according to the May 19 report from the U.S. Drought Monitor. Most of the worst drought conditions, unsurprisingly, occur in southeastern Colorado and in the San Luis Valley. 

“Up to this point, everything sounds bleak and terrible,” Schumacher said.

But there’s positive news coming, and that’s the storm forecast for Friday into Saturday, he said. The amount of snow predicted for the mountains and for some lower elevations is well above average for this time of year, he noted. Unfortunately, the storm is not forecasted to have much effect, if any, on southeastern or southwestern Colorado. 

Domonkos, hydrologist, went into more details on the rapid snowmelt. The peak runoff is already over for the southern part of the state, he said, and that could mean that reservoir levels won’t recover as much.

One of the few bright spots is the Gunnison River Basin, which has had a pretty good year in precipitation compared to the last couple of years, Domonkos said.

The Gunnison is home to Blue Mesa Reservoir, the state’s largest, and a major source of water for the Colorado River and Lake Powell. The reservoir was tapped last year to send water down to Lake Powell to keep hydropower functioning at the Glen Canyon Dam, and it could be tapped again this year, according to a report from CPR News.

Almost every part of the state is reporting faster than average snowmelt, the experts noted. In the Rio Grande basin, snowmelt peaked three weeks early, and only a few portions of the state – the Gunnison and South Platte River basins are among them – are seeing anything approaching normal snowmelt.