Western mountain snowpack

Bottom line regarding the state of western mountain snowpack levels and a projected lack of water runoff to fill irrigation and municipal reservoirs this spring and summer. Speaker 2: There are several factors contributing to the fact that we have had a rather abysmal Western winter wet season. Speaker 1: Usda meteorologist Brad Rippy says among the culprits behind the forecast. Speaker 2: Precipitation across the West since October has been very erratic. Speaker 1: Including periods of stormy weather that only produced rain at higher elevations and record heat in March that melted any gains made from February storm systems. Rippy says the traditional peak of the western mountain snowpack season of April 1st featured. Speaker 2: Snowpacks that actually peaked a month ago, back in late February to early March. Speaker 1: With, in some cases, snowpack melt already completely and assuring no water runoff into regional reservoirs this spring and summer. Speaker 2: That means that what is in the reservoirs now is what water managers have for the rest of the year. They have to get through the rest of the spring, all of summer and into autumn with what has already accumulated in those reservoirs. That's not a very good picture when you consider the fact that some of the reservoirs, including the biggest one in the west, the Colorado River basin, is very low to begin with. And so that is one of the reasons we have grave concerns about Western water supply heading into the summer of 2026.