May snowstorm lifts Colorado snowpack from zeroth percentile, but will it hold?

Colorado waved goodbye to winter with a late-season blast, as a May snowstorm brought more than 2 feet of snow to some areas of the state. But was the storm enough to keep the snowpack above the zeroth percentile?

The statewide snowpack is at 25% of median as of May 8, meaning the mountains have one-quarter of the typical amount of snow-water equivalent compared to the median for that specific date.

Despite still being on the lower end of snowpack for an average spring in Colorado, the state is officially out of historically low levels for the first week of May.

Several basins set records in early April for the lowest snow water equivalent on record as a March heatwave caused rapid melt-out and early ski resort closures. On May 6, the second day of the two-day storm, the statewide snowpack surpassed the historical minimum for that date.

While this is good news, Colorado is still on track to lose its snowpack earlier than normal and Colorado State Climatologist Russ Schumacher said the state should still be prepared for a summer of  low river flows and extreme drought.

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“I think it’s a small victory that we got above the previous record low for the snowpack in early May. We’ll take any bit of good news we can get at this point,” Schumacher said. “But I don’t think it’s really all that meaningful in the grand scheme of things.”

The May 5-6 storm dropped up to 2 feet of snow in some areas of the state, with mountains like Steamboat, Breckenridge and Vail seeing around 10 inches. The storm quickly became one of the biggest in Denver’s history.

The storms sprinkled throughout April and May have provided much needed relief for Colorado’s snowpack. Schumacher said April was a better month for the state than March because of a notable temperature difference.

The Colorado Climate Center described the March heat as “extreme and prolonged,” adding that the state had more than 7 days where temperatures exceeded the previous record-high March temperature from 1951-2025 — or the past 75 years. The heat wave during the second half of the month was enough to drop the statewide snowpack by nearly 5 inches, according to an April report.

March triggered an early meltoff for the state’s snowpack, with Schumacher predicting that the snow would be completely melted roughly two months ahead of normal.

“A normal meltdown … is in mid-to-late June in most places, and I doubt we’re going to make it that long,” he said.

April was cooler than March — despite still being warmer than normal in most parts of the state — and brought additional snow, which helped prevent the thin snowpack from melting completely.

For the Western Slope, April was closer to normal precipitation for the month, which pushed back the snowmelt estimates by a month.

“We maintained roughly the same level of snowpack through April, which is better than having it all go away in that month. And now we got this little bit of a bump, which I think is good news,” Schumacher said.

The most recent May snowfall, while likely delaying the early meltoff, was far from eliminating it completely.

“Maybe it ends up being three weeks instead of a month as a result of having these recent storms,” Schumacher said.

While the Colorado Climate Center has also seen minor improvements to drought conditions following storms in mid-April, parts of the Western Slope remain in the highest drought category (D4). Because the May snowstorm occurred after the data cutoff for this week’s drought monitor, the impacts won’t be reflected until the May 14 update.

“The improvements are modest, not anything that’s turning around the trajectory of the drought in a big way,” Schumacher said.

Schumacher’s confidence in an early meltoff is only strengthened by upcoming forecasts, which show Colorado returning to a pattern of warmer-than-normal weather.

“I think there’d be more reason for more optimism if we weren’t going to go right back into a warm and dry pattern over the next couple of weeks,” Schumacher said. “Unfortunately, it doesn’t look like the sort of pattern where we’ll get lots of those storms, because that’s really what we would need.”

Any snow still sitting on the mid-to-low elevations from the May storm is likely to melt quickly due to the upcoming warm weather, meaning its relief on the snowpack won’t stick around for long.

“In May, the sun angle is high and the days are long, so the snowpack is usually melting pretty quickly at this time of year anyway, even if it’s in normal conditions,” Schumacher said. “Whether it melts faster than it did in 2012 from this point forward, I’m not sure, but I don’t know that that distinction really matters all that much.”