After a dry fall and a slow start to snow accumulation in the mountains around Boulder and Jefferson County—and remarkably severe and widespread drought conditions in 2021—the current snowpack in the area is about normal for this point in winter, although the water content of snow in the Elkhorn Mountains is significantly less than in most years.
On Monday, a storm system dropped about 6 inches of snow on the mountains, and an inch or more on valley floors, boosting overall snow depths in the mountains to at or above their historical median values for Jan. 25.
The Rocker Peak SNOTEL station, maintained by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service, measured 36 inches of snow at the end of Monday, 6 inches of which fell that day. The median snow depth at the station, which sits at an elevation of about 8,000 feet near a saddle west of Rocker Peak north of Basin, is 35 inches for that day. The Frohner Meadow station, located at 6,480 feet at the top of the Lump Gulch drainage northwest of Jefferson City, reported 22 inches of snow, including 4 inches of new snow, on Monday—or 110% of the 20-inch median there.
