February delivered a series of 60-degree weather days – seven in all, or a quarter of the month in temperatures more common in May and early June. As such, winter never really took hold.
Now with March in sight, the San Luis Valley and its Rio Grande and Conejos River systems need a bounce in precipitation to avoid heavy curtailment this summer in its agricultural fields and to keep the dust down in general. The Rio Grande at Del Norte was measuring 44 percent of what’s normal for the end of February, while the Conejos was in better shape at 84 percent of normal flows, according to the latest measurements at Del Norte and Mogote.
The high of 67 on Feb. 3 was the warmest winter day on record at Alamosa, and records were broken throughout western and southern Colorado during that time period, said Russ Schumaker, director of the Colorado Climate Center at CSU-Fort Collins.
Alamosa also has never had a February with as many 60 degree days as 2025. Feb. 2, Feb. 3, Feb. 4, Feb. 6, Feb. 7, Feb. 24 and Feb. 25 all reached 60 or above. New record high temperatures were established for Feb. 2 (63 degrees), Feb. 3 (67 degrees), Feb. 4 (64 degrees) and Feb. 25 (64 degrees). The high of 59 on Feb. 24 also established a new record high, giving the month five days with new daily high temperatures.
“When there’s no snow on the ground like this month, then it gets (and stays) much warmer. This effect is true everywhere, but it is especially important in the Valley because of the high elevation and generally cooler air overall,” Schumaker said.
The warm February lent itself to an early arrival of sandhill cranes and a month of bicycle riding rather than snowboarding. March arrives similar to February, with unseasonably warm temperatures and low odds for moisture.
Even should snow materialize, February was too warm with its 60 degree days for any snowpack conditions to exist. Instead, whatever falls from the skies in March will get soaked up by the thirsty ground and work only to give a brief recharge to the rivers and the natural surface water that flows from the mountains into the Valley floor.