GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. — Colorado's statewide snowpack remained at 86 percent of average for the second straight month in January while Mesa Lakes watershed snowpack was 95 percent for the month, according to a report released Wednesday.

Snowpack levels decreased in many parts of the state during the dry January, but they increased in southwestern Colorado after a series of wet storms rolled through late in the month, the U.S. Natural Resources Conservation Service said in its monthly report.

Colorado's weather is considerably drier this winter than last winter, the report said. The statewide snowpack is just 73 percent of last year's snowpack at the same point in the season. The Jan. 1 and Feb. 1 snowpack levels were the lowest since 2003, the report said.

In the Roaring Fork basin, the snowpack in the Fryingpan Valley is particularly low, the conservation service data showed. The level at Nast Lake, at an elevation of 8,700 feet, was only 55 percent of the long-term average. At the Kiln site farther up the valley, the snowpack was only 59 percent of average. At Ivanhoe, a lake at 10,400 feet in elevation, the snowpack was 82 percent of average.

The Crystal River Valley also lost the healthy snowpack it had stockpiled earlier in the season. The North Lost Trail area near Marble had a snowpack 78 percent of average. At McClure Pass it was 83 percent of average, and at Schofield Pass it was 98 percent of average.

According to the report, the bright spot in the 2010 water year conditions is the state's reservoir storage.

“Storage volumes continue to track at slightly above average levels with statewide storage at 102 percent of average,” the report cited.