Pine River Irrigation District

Good afternoon to all 

The capacity of Vallecito is slightly below 110,000 af and dropping

Releases are near 1,820 cfs

Inflows are near 920 cfs and dropping

The latest Colorado River Basin Forecast has the upcoming storm strengthening. The current peak inflow is forecast to be near 2,500 cfs, well below the 7,500 cfs from the last storm. The temperatures are colder than the last storm, which indicates more snow up high. During the last storm the snowline was near 13,000 feet with rain below that. The snowline forecast will become clearer as will the modelled inflow over the next 48 hours.

We will increase the releases to around 1,900 this evening out of an abundance of caution. The release will happen later this evening to ensure the flow arrives in the Town of Ignacio close to daylight hours. These release flows are below the safe channel capacity set by the Army Corp. The flows in Ignacio are still quite high but not as high as they were last Thursday night into Friday morning. We will be in contact with those in Ignacio throughout the upcoming days.

The forecast is for a sunny day next Tuesday, and this storm has a much shorter duration than the last. See Below for NOAA data sets.

The SUIT water treatment plant did get additional water in storage, and we are in a much better place over the next week or so. Again, thanks to the SUIT staff involved in that process. There are many people involved in this process and again I want to thank them all, especially the Colorado River Basin Forecast Center staff who I believe are a conglomerate of NOAA employees all over the county and are getting great data out as in a timely manner.

As always, thank you for your attention to these matters. Be safe

David Hofmann

Pine River Irrigation District