After a winter of record-breaking heat and shameful snowfall, it felt good to wrap a month that was nothing more than average.
Let’s start with snow. The final open ski hill in the state, Arapahoe Basin, claimed 37 inches before closing day on May 17. That was more May snow than the Basin has seen in over two years.
May was the snowiest month of the season at A-Basin and, sadly, snowier than any one month at Breckenridge or Keystone. Not so sadly, it was enough to bump A-Basin’s season total over 200 inches, making it the only ski hill on I-70 with more than 200 on the season.
Copper closed just a few days before the first of our two May storms. Every other local ski hill closed weeks earlier than usual.
May snow totals
- Arapahoe Basin… 37 inches (220 inches total) *closed May 17
- Copper Mountain… 0in (179in total) *closed May 3
- Loveland Ski Area… 0in (176in total) *closed April 26
- Breckenridge… 0in (155in total) *closed April 25
- Winter Park… 0in (197in total) *closed April 19
- Vail… 0in (168in total) *closed April 8
- Keystone Resort… 0in (140in total) *closed April 5
- Beaver Creek… 0in (126in total) *closed March 29
Two snowstorms and a few rainstorms made May the wettest month in a year at the Krystalized weather station in Dillon. We picked up 1.17 inches of precipitation, which is barely below the 100-year average of 1.44 inches at the official record-keeping station in Dillon.
The average temperature in May was 46 degrees Fahrenheit, which is just above average over the past five years.
Wet, but not wet enough
Water experts would have loved to see a historically wet May. That is what we needed to bring local rivers and reservoirs close to average.
On June 1, the Blue River flowing into Lake Dillon is at half strength. The Tenmile Creek into the reservoir is not even one-quarter strength. The reservoir is 78% full today, and that is the highest it will be all summer, according to Denver Water.
Further downstream, Green Mountain Reservoir is barely one-third full today. That is the lowest it has been in early June since the dam was built in the ‘60s.