Snow pack gone after bone-dry winter

by Bill Boyle
San Juan Record Editor
A bone-dry winter leaves San Juan County with low reservoir levels and with little to no snowpack to fill the reservoirs, raising alarms for the summer of 2026.
By March 14, the scarce snowpack at the Camp Jackson SNO-tel station in the Abajo Mountains had completely melted.
In contrast, the snowpack at Camp Jackson generally reaches the high point of the winter on March 14. In an average year, there is more than a foot of water in the snow on March 14.
However, in 2026, the snow water equivalent at Camp Jackson peaked on February 26 with 5.3 inches of water in the snow.
In the 40 years that the Camp Jackson SNO-tel station has recorded hourly measurements, there have been only two other winters that had a lower snowpack. The snow water equivalent peaked at 4.3 inches in 2018 and at 3.9 inches in 2005
The dry winter comes on the heels of a dry summer in 2025, when the summer monsoon season failed to arrive for six weeks, until making a late arrival in late August.
In October, Mother Nature’s faucet turned from on to off during a remarkably wet period of time that saw record-breaking rains over several weeks. Conditions looked promising heading into winter, with great soil moisture content from the October storms.
However, the faucets turned off and there has been minimal precipitation since then.
Despite the dry summer and winter, the rains in October have kept the year-to-date total precipitation higher than average.