AURORA, Colo. — A late spring snowstorm is offering a brief reprieve from drought conditions across the Front Range, but experts say the region still has a long way to go.
The storm kept AAA Service Plumbing, Heating, & Electric technicians busy across the Denver metro area on Thursday.
"Classic Colorado. If you don't like the weather, wait five minutes, right?" said HVAC technician Adam Nasser.
Denver7 met up with Nasser as he fixed a Westminster family’s furnace.
“It looks like we have a blown fuse,” said Nasser. “This usually happens after a power outage or a power surge.”
Despite this week’s hard freeze, crews said they seem to be dodging major frozen and burst pipe problems.
Avoiding those issues is the best-case scenario during Colorado’s drought, according to Aurora Water Manager of Water Conservation Tim York.
"If you don't catch [a broken pipe] for four or five hours, you can see, you know, six, seven hundred, a thousand gallons of waste," York said.
► Watch Adria Iraheta's report in the player below |
York said reservoir levels have not changed significantly despite the latest snowfall.
"When you're, you know, 8, 9 to 10 feet down of what you really need, five or six or seven inches doesn't do a whole lot for you," York said.
Denver7 Chief Meteorologist Lisa Hidalgo said the storm did provide some benefit to the state's snowpack but cautioned that drought concerns remain.
"I think at one point we were down to about 18% of normal — as of this morning with this most recent snow, statewide snowpack is at about 25% of normal,” Hidalgo said. "People are still going to be mindful, and we'll likely see more drought restrictions pop up here.”
Many Front Range residents are already under water restrictions, including limits on lawn irrigation. York said the storm should at least give homeowners a short break from watering.
"Hopefully for those people that had turned it on early, they'll now turn it off and let the snow melt and that moisture kind of take care of their landscape for a while. You should be able to get a couple weeks out of it," York said.
Aurora Water reports the number of water usage citations has been declining and hopes this week's storm will help drive those numbers down further.
And a silver lining: “Before this recent storm, we were on the Top 10 list for one of the least snowy seasons ever on record here in Denver,” Hidalgo said. “This bumped us up, so we're not on that top ten list, which is good. We want to be as far away from that list as possible.”
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