Warm and Dry November

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Colorado Springs has seen less than an inch of precipitation so far this fall. As KRCC’s Katherine-Claire O’Connor reports, continued drought could impact water use come spring.

The National Weather Service says it’s not uncommon to have warm and dry conditions every ten years or so. It’s no surprise then Colorado Springs Utilities is seeing an increase of water usage by four million gallons per day. Water engineer Abby Ortega says they’re watching the situation closely.

"Our system is set up to be fairly drought tolerant. But we have activated our drought response team. Which means as an organization we’re looking at what it will take to implement restrictions, and sort of activating those teams and having people on the ready to go into restrictions. I wouldn’t say we are panicked or super overly concerned. We know how to respond to a drought.”

Ortega says the mountains need to receive higher than average snow this season to avoid possible water restrictions. Forecasters say while it’s difficult to predict long-term, they expect some snow in December, but over-all a dryer than average winter.