Reservoirs in the Colorado Springs area are at about 78-percent capacity, which is a drastic improvement from where they have been over the past several years.

In 2003 Crystal Reservoir reached its lowest point ever at 42-percent of capacity, a 36-percent difference to what you will find today and its in part because of this summer’s wet weather.

Eleven straight days of rain at the beginning of July was a welcome surprise for people like Mark Grisko who watched his garden spring to life.

"We had lots of tomatoes and spinach and beans. I'd say it was a real good year for water, everything grew like crazy, " Grisko said.

But Colorado Springs water engineer Kevin Lusk says the increase in moisture over the past year is just part of the reason why the drought is improving.

"This year we had voluntary restrictions and people have still used quite a bit less water...we saved about 2.8 billion gallons...people are using less water even then they did 5 years ago,”
He said.

Lusk says even though the numbers have improved and we are currently about 8 to 10-percent above the long term average...we still have a ways to go. Colorado Springs remains on a stage one drought declaration...now if we have a wetter winter because of El Nino, which is being predicted he says they may decide to back off that restriction.