The unevenness of March continues into the week ahead. It’ll be a mixture of 50 degree days, occasional cloudy skies, and some serious wind on Tuesday. The Upper Rio Grande Basin is at 69 percent of its median for snowpack, and now hopes for a reasonable irrigation season are resting on summer monsoons. Here’s more on St. Paddy’s Day.
1. Water season
A low snowpack year plus a historically warm winter season have soils wanting moisture, but the presumptive April 1 start to the annual water season will hold for Upper Rio Grande Basin irrigators. The Colorado Division of Water Resources, during a presentation at the March Rio Grande Basin Roundtable meeting, said it is sticking to April 1 as the official start of the farmer’s water season on the Rio Grande. “Without significant rain, we would expect the streams to drop back to base low earlier than normal,” said staff engineer Pat McDermott. Given current conditions, peak flows on the Upper Rio Grande and Conejos should occur in May, making June, July and August dependent on summer rains.
2. Measuring snow
The National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) is adding to its SNOTEL network to help with its winter snow measurements and spring runoff forecasts. The federal natural resources agency is building SNOTEL stations in the Elwood Pass and Creede areas. Heather Dutton of the San Luis Valley Water Conservancy District has been championing the need for additional SNOTEL stations to better forecast spring runoff into the creeks that feed the Upper Rio Grande Basin.
3. The Valley Pod: SLV Aquatics
A group of committed swimmers and health enthusiasts is pushing forward with a proposal for an aquatics center to be built in Monte Vista and for the benefit of all Valley residents. Melinda Hunzeker and Grace Young of San Luis Valley Aquatics joined The Valley Pod to outline the plan they hope Rio Grande County Commissioners will place on a ballot for a vote. “We want it to be as versatile a facility as possible so we can get as many people from as many age ranges as we can involved and inside the building and using the facility, hopefully multiple hours all day, 365 days a year,” said Hunzeker.
4. Those ‘Cranes in Flight’
For now we’re teased with “Into Thin Air: Cranes in Flight” through a series of photographs from the studio of Jocelyn Russell, the 1979 Alamosa High graduate who made it big in the bronze sculpting world. See her work on Secretariat, the great horse racing champion, and now her effort to memorialize Grizzly 399 in the state of Wyoming. Everything Russell does is larger-than-life and so will be “Into Thin Air: Cranes in Flight.” The Woman’s Citizenship Club of Alamosa is behind it all and is planning an unveiling sometime in June. The bronze monument will stand at the intersection of Sixth Street and State Avenue, making it a landmark piece for Downtown Alamosa. Here’s more on the art work in progress.
5. From The Sports Page
Romain Legendre is a tenacious runner, always setting the pace, forcing the pack to stick with him and try to catch him in the final laps of a race. At the NCAA DII Indoor Track & Field Championships held over the weekend in Indianapolis, there were no challengers to Legendre, the senior runner from Adams State. He captured national indoor titles in the 5,000 and 3,000 meter races in pacing Adams State to a fourth-place team finish … Ava O’Connor, Tristan Spence, and Emily Schoellkopf ran their hearts out in getting Adams State to a fourth-place finish in the women’s team standings. Spence was runner up at 5,000 meters, and O’Connor led both the mile and 3,000 meters going into the final laps before she finished third and sixth in those races. For her part, Schoellkopf is a patient runner who finds a kick of speed at the end. She was fourth at 3,000 meters and 8th at 5,000 meters.
In the NCAA DII wrestling championships, Adams State’s Aaden Valdez finished third in the 157-pound bracket
In Denver, Sanford High finished third in the Class 2A bracket of the girls state high school basketball tournament. Centauri High boys, unbeaten entering the state tournament, won a thrilling opening game, 41-40 over Yuma. But the Falcons lost their semifinal matchup against eventual state champ, Resurrection Christian High, and then lost the third-place game to Windsor Charter Academy.