Wet snowfall fell across much of southeast Colorado on Wednesday, breaking records in Pueblo and bringing needed moisture to the region.

Local snowfall reports after noon show 5 to 6.5 inches across Colorado Springs while the highest reported snowfall totals in southeast Colorado were in Rye and Colorado City, both with 10 inches.

“Wet snowfall like this stays on the ground for a long time and just gradually soaks in, so it’s going to be very beneficial,” National Weather Service Lead Meteorologist Makoto Moore told The Gazette. “The entire area has been so dry over the past months, so any kind of precipitation like this, we welcome it.”

Across the region the weather service in Pueblo covers, a 3.48% increase in moderate drought status on Nov. 11 was the largest since August after significant reductions in September and October. The latest report from the National Drought Monitor on Nov. 25 showed a slight improvement with 6.23% of land area in moderate drought and 29.14% abnormally dry.

No official snowfall total for Colorado Springs will be measured until the end of the day and Moore said it would be close to breaking or tying the current daily snowfall record of 4.9 inches for Dec. 3, set in 2005.

The city’s airport is used for its official measurement and the nearest local report to it registered 6.5 inches around 7:30 p.m. 4 miles northwest of Peterson Space Force Base.

Elsewhere in the region, numerous morning snowfall reports near the Air Force Academy, Tri-Lakes area and Woodland Park ranged from 4 to 6 inches.

In Pueblo West, a Weather Service employee reported 1 inch had fallen by 5 a.m. and another report by an employee less than a mile away around 3:30 p.m. reported 6 inches had accumulated.

The Pueblo Airport had seen 5 inches of snowfall by 5 p.m., breaking the city’s daily snowfall record of 3.2 inches for Dec. 3 set in 2005. Its normal snowfall for December is 1.5 inches, according to Weather Service data.

Pueblo also set a new precipitation record for Dec. 3 with 0.43 inches, more than doubling the previous record of 0.19 inches in 2005.