Denver is behind schedule for moisture, and there are concerns surrounding the water supply

Added: 2026-05-20

[00:00:00]Preparing you for first alert weather more rain ahead tonight and again tomorrow. You'll also feel those cooler temperatures for a while and then Colorado mountain passes there is snow and a lot of it enough to ski on here on Berthoud Pass. [laughter] And now we're getting you ready for more. Good evening. I'm Kelly O'Connell.

[00:00:17]>> And I'm Michael Spencer. We have team coverage for you tonight. Chief meteorologist Dave Aguilera going to map out what is coming our way. We begin with first alert meteorologist Joe Rourke. Joe, I know you're in Boulder.

[00:00:26]So what does it look like there right now?

[00:00:29]Hey, all is good for now Michael. We picked up probably 1.2 inches of rain starting yesterday until today. All right, I want to explain something. Give me a minute. We will look at the dynamic weather Colorado experiences rain and snowpack. It's all water. But look at this Denver is about 3 inches of liquid below average. That creates the question. Okay, what if we catch up as late May is approaching and it's more active. Well, if we catch up, that would be great news locally here in Denver for example, we'd soak the ground, we'd green up our vegetation, we'd also see localized fire impacts begin to be minimized. However, Colorado's water supply, that is a completely different story. When you take a look at the statewide snowpack, we are at 16% of where we want to be. Think of this as a savings account for example. All winter long it's frozen and we are growing our savings and then once late spring early summer approaches, we begin to lose all of that moisture slowly into our rivers and reservoirs. Well, here's the issue. It was an abysmal year. You see our snowpack is still pretty bad. So two things can be true. Hey Denver, we could mitigate this drought locally and catch up on our rain totals, but that doesn't fix the water supply issue here in Colorado. This snowpack, if you come back with me, it is feeding our rivers reservoirs which is feeding our cities and our farmers. So, this rain is a good thing, but there still will be localized issues regarding our frozen reservoir.

[00:02:06]And Dave, I will send it back to you, but there is quite literally a wall of moisture headed our way in Boulder. What are we looking at on the radar? Well, you got more rain coming your way, and then later tonight we've got another surge, which is cooking down there in the San Luis Valley on the way. So, we are not done yet, even though we've had kind of a lull in the action around the Denver metro area, where it's 51° right now. Here's the satellite. Now, most of the day, on and off, the jet stream has been bringing rain and snow over the mountains, the foothills to the west of the Boulder County area here, all the way back into Rocky Mountain National Park here, where Trail Ridge Road has had over a foot of snow already. And there's just little kind of offshoots coming into Denver. But, take a look at this. Down south, around the Sangre de Cristos, Alamosa, into northern New Mexico, there's another surge coming through. So, overnight tonight, we're going to get a little more water. So, if you look at our water chances, look at this. 35-50% as we go through the night tonight, and then after 11:00 p.m. into 2:00 a.m., it surges up to 70 to 85%, and we may continue to have a little moisture all the way into the morning drive tomorrow. I'll map all of that out for you, and we'll take a look at what the holiday weekend looks like. It'll be a lot different than this, coming up in your first alert forecast.

[00:03:19]>> Dave. Thank you.