Between Monday and Wednesday, southeast Wyoming and northern Colorado received more than an inch of much-needed water from a spring snowstorm.
Meteorologists report that the last two days brought the largest amount of snow to the region in at least six months, and possibly more than any time during this past winter.
After looking at the numbers, Cowboy State Daily meteorologist Don Day was inclined to agree.
“For a single event, that is probably correct for a good part of the Colorado Front Range and southern Wyoming,” he said. “It was a nice, big event, but it's also pathetic that it took this long to get one.”
By Wednesday afternoon, the sun was shining through snow-covered trees in Cheyenne.
The much-needed moisture wasn’t enough to break the ongoing drought, but anything is welcome after “the winter that wasn’t.”
“This was a nibble, but a pretty good nibble,” Day said. “We need to follow it up with more.”
How Much Water?
Snowfall totals and snow water equivalents are still being calculated in Wyoming and Colorado, but as much as 24 inches of snow has been reported in the northern Front Range of the Colorado Rockies.
Some of the highest points, over 9,000 feet, might have received as much as 36 inches of snow.
Meteorologist Ryan Zawislak with the National Weather Service (NWS) office in Cheyenne said the official total recorded at his office was 8.9 inches of snow between Monday night and Wednesday morning.
“That’s around 1.10 inches of water,” he said. “It was a lot of high-quality snow.”
That corresponds with Day’s backyard measurements.
“I had 1.21 inches on my gauge,” he said. “Another 3 inches of snow fell since 5 p.m. Tuesday.”
According to Day, the amount of total precipitation across Laramie County ranged from 0.8 and 1.25 inches of water.
Cheyenne and Laramie were at the hotspot for this cold, heavy snow, but other areas of the state benefited from this spring snowstorm.
Day said the eastern slopes and foothills of the Wind River Mountains also received a good amount of snow.
“A credible volunteer observer reported 7 to 8 inches of snow in Sinks Canyon outside Lander,” he said. “Evanston, Rock Springs, Green River, and Rawlins didn’t get great amounts, but they saw some precipitation.”
This Is May
When the snow started falling, Day called this “a million-dollar storm” that would pay huge dividends. The irony is that this is the type of weather that’s expected and, historically, frequent for the first week of May.
“This is May,” he said. “May, on average, is the wettest month of the year for most of the Intermountain West. Snow events are not uncommon for the first two weeks of May.”
According to Day, Cheyenne typically receives about 2.5 inches of precipitation in May. This week’s storm took care of around half of that average amount.
“This was big, but it’s what we should expect at this time of year,” Day said.
The fact that the last two days might be the single largest snowfall for southeast Wyoming since November, and possibly the most moisture in the region since last August, is an indication of how dry and destitute the 2025-2026 winter season was.
According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, all of southeast Wyoming was experiencing either extreme or exceptional drought as of April 28.
This snowstorm wasn’t enough to change that outlook, but it was a lot better than staying dangerously dry.
“Moisture is moisture,” Zawislak said. “Anything helps.”
The Mother’s Day Mark
Looking ahead, the NWS’s extended forecast for Wyoming doesn’t resemble Tuesday’s snow-covered Cheyenne. Temperatures are expected to steadily rise over the next week.
“We’re going to dry out over the weekend,” Zawislak said. “Cheyenne’s high on Monday will be around 81 degrees.”
Day doesn’t see “another big weather maker” in the next week, but that doesn’t mean it’ll be completely dry. Two incoming waves of weather will be enough to manifest as scattered showers and thunderstorms across the state.
“We can expect scattered showers and thunderstorms on Thursday afternoon and Saturday night,” he said. “I think there will be moisture with these storms, but they won’t be widespread.”
As for snow, Day’s rule-of-thumb is that Wyoming typically isn’t done with snow until after Mother’s Day. This year, that might be a cause of concern more than a sigh of relief.
“I can give you a long list of snow events over Mother's Day weekend,” he said. “We’ve seen pretty big snowstorms on May 14 and 15, so this week’s weather was pretty much on cue for the first week of May.”
Potentially Good News
If this week’s weather was any indication of a wetter trend for Wyoming, Day believes it’s too early to speculate.
After the many failed forecasts for the winter season, he’s not confident going beyond seven days, let alone two or three weeks out.
There is one “potentially” good sign on the horizon. An El Niño appears to be forming over the Pacific Ocean, something that’s been anticipated for months but finally seems to be manifesting.
What could that mean? Day is taking it one week at a time, but the historical precedent is that an El Niño at this time of year has been good news.
“When El Niño comes on in late spring and early summer, it does tend to bring an uptick in precipitation,” he said. “We've got history on our side, but there's some hesitancy. We’ve seen how very strong signals have failed to come to fruition since November.”
Regardless, the last two days have been undeniably good for the southeast corner of Wyoming, and some other areas that managed to squeeze some snow out of the system when they had the opportunity.
There might be more where that came from, but Day doesn’t want to get anyone’s hopes up.
“There's going to be an atmospheric response to this El Niño in the coming weeks,” Day said. “How the atmosphere responds and how that manifests itself in Wyoming is going to be interesting to watch over the next four weeks or so, but as crazy as this last six months has been, I'm not going to count my chickens yet.”
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
