Even a great winter won’t erase last year’s deficit. This is the point worth sitting with. Streamflows across the state were running at a fraction of normal levels by late summer, and major reservoirs — including two of the region’s largest — were sitting at roughly a quarter of expected capacity. Mountain soil moisture was near historic lows heading into fall, which affects how efficiently next spring’s snowmelt actually converts into usable runoff. Water officials describe recovery from a deficit this size as a multi-year process, not a single-season fix.
Timing is shifting, too. Peak snowpack — historically an early-April event — is now trending toward mid-March in Colorado. That earlier melt has real implications for water availability later in the season, independent of how much snow actually falls.
What we can say with more confidence: this winter is very likely to be better than last winter. That’s a low bar, but it’s a real one. And early seasonal outlooks point toward above-normal snowfall for areas east of and near the Continental Divide — including Telluride, Purgatory, Wolf Creek, and Winter Park — which is worth watching for buyers weighing properties in those corridors.
Why this matters for the market. We’ve written before about how mountain real estate values held firm through last year’s poor ski season — proof that pricing in this market is tied to scarcity, lifestyle, and long-term water and land fundamentals, not to any single winter’s snow totals. This year’s forecast reinforces the same lesson from the other direction: even a strong winter is a step toward recovery, not a reset. For buyers, that’s a reason to focus less on this season’s snow totals and more on the structural realities — water rights, headwaters geography, reservoir capacity — that actually govern long-term value on the Western Slope.
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