VAIL, Colorado — Low snowfall has its obvious effects on ski resorts in Colorado's Vail Valley, but those who keep track of snowpack levels for other purposes are beginning to anticipate spring and summer consequences of this less-than-snowy winter.

“I think it's kind of time to get concerned about this low of a snowpack for this time of year,” said Mike Gillespie, the snow survey supervisor for the Natural Resources Conservation Service. “It's considerably below average.”

About 50 percent to 80 percent of the water supply in the West comes in the form of snow, according to the Conservation Service, which is why water managers throughout the West are paying attention to snow levels.

So far this winter, it has been a typical El Nino winter, Gillespie said. The storms that come in through California head into Arizona and New Mexico, dropping a lot of precipitation on southwestern Colorado, but not much to the north.

The rest of the state “just kind of gets missed by the moisture,” Gillespie said.

Gillespie said that while El Nino years have equaled very wet springs in the past, it might not be enough.

“Given that low of a percentage at this time of the year, with only 40 percent of the winter left, it doesn't give us a lot of ground to make up and not much time,” he said.

Diane Johnson, spokeswoman for the Eagle River Water and Sanitation District, is a little more optimistic that things could change. There are a lot of factors between now and the spring that could turn things around, she said.

“It's still early February, we could do really well in March and April and be OK,” Johnson said.

The Eagle River Water and Sanitation District analysts aren't as concerned with snow depths as they are with snow water equivalents, or the amount of moisture found in snow. The District measures levels at each of the snow survey stations that directly affect local water supplies, with Vail Mountain's site as one of them.

The survey station on Vail Mountain just hit the 2002 drought level, meaning levels have been less than they were in 2002 until now, where they're about even.

The District compares levels to 2002 because that was a really dry year. A graph showing both 2002 and current levels proves there's something to be concerned about.

Gillespie thinks this year is starting to look like 2002, but there's still some room for hope. “The wild card is still for what El Nino could bring to the state in the late spring,” Gillespie said.

Vail Mountain spokeswoman Liz Biebl said the resort has no plans to turn its snowmaking system back on this season and also expressed optimism for the coming months.

“We can expect more natural snowfall in February and March and spring temperatures are not typically cold enough to make snow,” Biebl said. “The terrain that the snowmaking system covers is more than adequately covered.”

Beaver Creek Resort's snowmaking isn't necessarily shut down for the winter, though. Beaver Creek spokeswoman Jen Brown said the resort could start up snowmaking at any point during the winter as long as temperatures are appropriate.

The Vail Fire Department is keeping an eye on moisture, too, although Fire Chief Mark Miller said nobody is overly anxious about the snow levels yet.

If snowpacks are low and melt off the mountains quickly, it gives surface fuels a chance to dry out faster, Miller said. The lower snowpack could potentially mean an earlier fire season and a more intense fire season, but Miller and his crew are watching moisture levels through March before they get too concerned, he said.

“Come the next month and a half or so, then we'll start strategizing for an earlier (fire) season,” Miller said.

Community Editor Lauren Glendenning can be reached at 970-748-2983 or lglendenning@vaildaily.com.