Overview:
An unusually warm winter is reshaping life in Boulder County, affecting farming, gardening, insects, plants and the ski season.
During Boulder County’s first major cold spell in late January, Longmont farmer Joshua Olsen dug his hand into the compost pile at Aspen Moon Farm. Instead of wet soil, he found it dry. All he could think was more water.
“Like praying to pachamama and to the cosmos to bring it,” Olsen said. “Shut it down, like, blizzard. White out.”
The brief cold snap was welcome, but it underscored a larger problem. This winter has felt more like spring — warm, dry and increasingly unpredictable. For Olsen, any snow or sustained cold is better than nothing at all.
Boulder County residents are beginning to see how Colorado’s historically warm winter is affecting daily life. Higher temperatures and low snowpack are reshaping farming practices, confusing plant and insect cycles and straining winter recreation. Without sustained cold, insects survive longer, plants emerge too early and snow disappears quickly from the mountains.
“This past November and December were the warmest this two-month average temperature has ever been,” said John Cassano, a climate scientist and professor at the University of Colorado Boulder. According to the USDA, on Jan. 26, Colorado had 58 percent of the snowpack that’s typical at that time of year.
Cassano believes that the winter may be a blip, claiming that the main cause of the unusual weather is a weather pattern known as a ridge, which is associated with warm, dry weather. According to Cassano, ridges are part of the normal variability in large-scale atmospheric circulation and weather patterns.
Regardless of whether these are short-term or long-term issues, for farmers like Olsen, a lack of snow means less natural moisture is soaking into the soil. Without precipitation to water their fields, Aspen Moon Farm is forced to use their irrigation system to loosen soil and pull weeds. However, the irrigation system does not water the fields as evenly as snow or rain, leaving some areas of the beds dry and hard, making weed removal difficult and slowing planting preparation.
“If it has good moisture in it, to prep a field, two to three days, tops,” Olsen said. By contrast, during a dry fall two years ago, it took nearly a week to prepare a single field.
Less water also affects how much food Aspen Moon Farm is able to produce. Olsen pointed to cabbage as an example: a well-watered bed might yield 1,000 pounds, while a drier one may produce only half that. Smaller yields don’t just hurt farm finances but ripple outward into the community.
“We’re selling a lot of food; we’re feeding a lot of people,” Olsen said. “To lose farms of this size is not what we want to be doing as a community.”
Colder winter temperatures also play a critical role in controlling pests. Olsen said freezing conditions help reduce populations of non-beneficial insects, like aphids, which feed on plant sugars and are difficult to manage organically. Since Aspen Moon Farm is certified organic, chemical controls aren’t an option.
“The more non-beneficial insects, the higher the population just throughout the season,” Olsen said. “It is tougher to manage.”
Kendra Espinoza, an outdoor plant gardener who works with Sturtz & Copeland florist in Boulder, has noticed similar effects. She recently uncovered a bunch of ladybugs, which she said usually die by the early winter. She has also seen pollinators flying around despite the lack of available nectar.
“They do starve to death,” Espinoza said. “And it’s very sad.”
Plants, too, are behaving out of season. “I went to a client’s house about four weeks ago, and their pansies are just still blooming like it’s October,” Espinoza said. “It’s bizarre.”
Espinoza explained that she has also seen irises about two months too early and noted that her own lavender plants are thriving about two months later than they typically would. Her amazement is coupled with a concern for the health of the plants.
“The problem with things emerging earlier is that if it freezes, then all the plants die,” Espinoza said, “and then they don’t really come back again.”
At the same time, plants adapted to winter dormancy depend on sustained cold to survive, making fluctuating temperatures especially damaging.
The unusually warm winter has also been felt in the mountains. Spencer Bernhardt noticed the lack of snow while visiting ski resorts in December, where narrow “white ribbons” of snow cut through otherwise bare ground.
“To own a ski resort right now would be really, really tough,” Bernhardt said.
Bernhardt is an employee at a ski rental and tuning shop in Boulder called Alpine Base and Edge, where Kris Steigerwald is the Chief Technology Officer. Steigerwald says that earlier in the season, he thought the warm temperatures and lack of snow may negatively affect business, but it hasn’t.
“Bad ski seasons are good ski shop seasons,” Steigerwald said. “Everybody’s bringing in broken gear, because they hit rocks, and they get core shots and edge fixes.”
Taken together, these experiences paint a clear picture of how rising temperatures are reshaping life in Boulder County. From farms to mountain slopes, residents have been left to adapt, worry and wait for snow that may or may not come.
For Bernhardt, the winter makes him a bit nervous about the ski conditions in the future. He explained that he wonders if his kids will be able to ski the same way he did growing up.
“It just overall takes a little bit of the magic out of winter,” Bernhardt said.
Steigerwald said he’s not too excited to go skiing without good conditions, but that those conditions are still coming. Even if the weather remains warm, Steigerwald plans to enjoy participating in other recreational activities.
“If the weather turns warm, I’m out golfing,” Steigerwald said. “Other people are out mountain biking; other people are out rock climbing.”
As for Olsen, he said the conditions put added stress on him and fellow farmers. He recalls feeling panicked during his first year dealing with dry conditions but has learned to live with the stress and not allow it to affect his day-to-day life.
Still, “we hope for more snow, pray for more snow,” Olsen said. “We go out into our fields when they’re dry and we just try to send energy out.”
