Colorado's snowpack is 40 times normal after rare summer solstice dump

Dylan Totterdale, 14, clears the snow off the awning of their RV Monday, May 20, 2019 at the Gore Creek Campground in East Vail, Colo. The Totterdales are the hosts of the campground, and RV around the country fulltime. This year they said it's been a cold one at the site with all the snow. (Chris Dillmann/Vail Daily via AP) less Dylan Totterdale, 14, clears the snow off the awning of their RV Monday, May 20, 2019 at the Gore Creek Campground in East Vail, Colo. The Totterdales are the hosts of the campground, and RV around the country ... more Photo: Chris Dillmann, Associated Press Photo: Chris Dillmann, Associated Press Image 1 of / 9 Caption Close Colorado's snowpack is 40 times normal after rare summer solstice dump 1 / 9 Back to Gallery

On summer's opening day, up to 20 inches of snow buried the high terrain of the Colorado Rockies, boosting the state's snowpack to extraordinary levels for the time of year.

The solstice flakes marked a continuation of a snowy stretch that began in January and February and lingered through spring. Even before the solstice snow, The Denver Post wrote, the state's snowpack was "in virtually every numerical sense . . . off the charts." At the time, the snowpack was 751 percent above normal.

Due to the new snow Friday into the weekend, the Natural Resources Conservation Service reported that the state's snowpack ballooned to 4,121 percent above normal as of Monday. This number is so high because ordinarily very little snow is left by late June, and cold temperatures late into the spring helped preserve what fell earlier.

After the weekend blanket of white, the scenes in the high country west of Denver resembled midwinter. Enough snow fell to close roads, while many ski areas reported accumulation, including Breckenridge, Vail, Beaver Creek, Arapahoe Basin and Steamboat Springs.

At Steamboat, snow stakes showed up to around 20 inches Saturday. CNN wrote that the last time this area witnessed snow this late in the season was June 17, 1928. It averages just 0.1 inches in June and normally sees its last day of snow around May 6.

At Arapahoe Basin, so much snow has fallen since the winter that it has stayed opened for skiing on weekends through the month. It declared Saturday a powder day after a fresh coating of two inches. The resort plans to open again next weekend and possibly over the July 4 weekend, its blog says.

The snow was triggered by an unusually cold pool of air at high altitudes over the western United States combined with a vigorous weather disturbance that ejected out of the Southwest.

While the snow may have some in the Colorado high country craving warmer temperatures, the onslaught of precipitation since January has ended a costly drought in the state, and the elevated snowpack and runoff are expected to lower Colorado's wildfire risk through the summer.