It doesn’t take a deep dive into the data to see how far below average the snowpack is this year—though there’s still some hope for a less flammable dry season, according to Erin Walter, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.

With snow conditions in Garfield County sitting far below the state’s median, rivers throughout the area may not be able to supply a prolonged recreation season, following a recent trend. 

“When you look at snow conditions over much of Garfield County, we are sitting at around 19% of the median,” Walter said. 

Walter said that although lower areas like Garfield County are sitting far below the median, the higher mountain conditions remain moderately positive. 

“When you look at the areas that are a little higher up that feed into Garfield County, the conditions look a little bit better.”

She pointed at the Colorado headwaters, which currently sit at 54% of normal, being a small bright spot, but because of headwaters’ early peak, we are staring down the barrel of a bottom five percentile snowpack season. 

“It’s not a record low,” Walter said. “But if you look at all of our years of data, 2025 is in the bottom 5% of those years.”

The Roaring Fork Valley’s tourism economy, which relies on snow-fed rivers for recreation, may not have enough water to sustain a long season of activities like rafting and kayaking on the Colorado and Roaring Fork rivers.

“In general, the amount of water coming through is 50% to 70% of normal,” Walter said. “We are going to be looking at pretty low conditions all year, which probably will lead to not as active or prolonged recreation season.”

Walter compared this year’s subpar snow performance to one of the worst in recent memory. 

“On the same day in late May, 2018, we had very similar conditions,” she said. “In the basin that takes up most of Garfield County, we have almost an equal amount of what we did in May 2018, which ended up being a pretty bad fire year.”

Although we are looking at a similar situation to a fire-friendly 2018, Walter said there may be a small fire-resistant path to sneak through.

“With this dry and unusually warm spring that we have had throughout western Colorado, we’re seeing drought conditions ramp up,” she said. “Fortunately, with our short-term forecast, we don’t have immediate concerns.”

Walter added that an above-average monsoon season could help limit wildfire risk later in the summer. She said forecasts show a higher-than-average chance for precipitation in late July, August, and September.

“One redeeming quality is that we are expecting a heavier monsoon this season,” she said. “Recent forecasts are showing a higher than average chance for precipitation.”

For more information about the state of snowpack on the Western Slope, visit nrcs.usda.gov/colorado or weather.gov/gjt