Isn't this June? Snow sticking around on Pikes Peak

No, Colorado Springs residents, your calendar isn't deceiving you. It is in fact June.

A glance to the west, in the rare moments this week when the sky has been clear, may suggest otherwise.

Pikes Peak is ensconced in snow, whiter than it was in January and February. A series of snowstorms since Memorial Day weekend has dropped 6 to 12 inches each, said Jack Glavan, manager of the Pikes Peak Highway. Another foot fell above treeline Tuesday, and snow drifts are 7 feet high in places, he said.

While not unheard of, since it can snow all year at 14,115 feet, so much snow is definitely unusual.

"This time of year, yeah, it sure is," said Pat Collrin, who provides visitor information in Colorado Springs for the U.S. Forest Service. "We're getting our winter in spring."

"It's been amazing," said Kevin Lusk, who, as a water supply engineer for Colorado Springs Utilities, is thrilled with the late-season moisture. The reservoirs on Pikes Peak, one-fifth of the city's water supply, are 84 percent full, which is 20 percent greater than normal for early June, he said.

So why is winter sticking around on the peak three weeks past when the snow has usually melted its way into Colorado Springs' faucets?

"We've not dropped into our normal summer situation yet, nor are we showing any great signs of it at this point," said Jim Hall, forecaster with the National Weather Service in Pueblo.

The mid-spring trend of big storms out of the southwest and west has persisted into June, instead of the normal summer pattern of hot weather and sudden, intense thunderstorms that form over the mountains in the afternoon, Hall said. The storms that have washed out recent spring weekends have continually refreshed the snowpack on the peak.

They also put the deep freeze on the tourism season, at least for one day this week.

The popular Cog Railway, from Manitou Springs to the summit of the peak, had to stop all four of Tuesday's trains below the summit because of snow and white-out conditions.

"A lot of tourists were surprised by that," said the railway's traffic manager, David Donatto. "That's one of the first times I remember we couldn't get to the summit in June."

Crews dug through 4-foot drifts on the tracks, and Thursday's trains were running to the top, he said.

On the Pikes Peak Highway, crews punched through to the summit Thursday, the first time since Saturday the highway was open to the top, Glavan said. It's the most late-season snow he has seen in at least seven years, and maybe longer. While some tourists have been disappointed, others are enjoying it, and some people are still skiing the chutes above Glen Cove.

"I saw people the other day having snowball fights, and they were wearing shorts," Glavan said.

The Forest Service is warning hikers to avoid Barr Trail, the main hiking route up the mountain. Collrin, with the Forest Service, said the trail is not visible in places, and since it is steep, could be considered a technical climb in these conditions.

Here in town, the moisture has greened lawns and trees and gone a long way toward reversing a sizeable precipitation deficit for the year. The weather gauge at the Colorado Springs Airport has recorded 5.94 inches of precipitation this year, which is 0.90 inches below normal.

Said Hall, the forecaster, "It's one of those situations where we've had these streaks of moist periods and people tend to remember them. You don't realize we're actually in a deficit for the year, because we had such a dry earlier part of the year."