When climate-prediction meteorologists said an El Niño would bring a wet spring, locals looked back at a dry winter and scoffed. And then the rain came. And came.
“It has also been cooler than normal,” said meteorologist Dennis Phillips from the Grand Junction office of the National Weather Service, “and the forecast for the rest of the summer continues to be cooler and wetter than normal. El Niño is forecasted to strengthen into the fall.”
May and June were both three to four times wetter than normal, and July is trending the same way, he said. The weather service’s official measuring location for town is out at the Durango-La Plata County Airport, which has received 1.6 inches to date this month. The month-to-date average is 0.56 inches. The monthly average is 1.72 inches, so we’re almost there. With half the month to go and a chance for numerous storms in the forecast, it seems likely July will be a repeat of May and June.
“We’re now in the monsoonal season, and every day, it’s just kind of hit or miss,” he said. “Where the storm will form and hit is hard to forecast, but if storms do hit an area, there’s a good chance of heavy rainfall with it.”
Thursday and Friday look like the best days to recreate over the next week.
They’re expected to be drier and warmer, but the weather service expects a “significant uptick in monsoonal moisture” beginning Saturday and continuing into early next week. It’s also expected to cool down, with highs dropping into the mid-70s.
The monsoonal rain may be picking up a bit of moisture from Hurricane Dolores, Phillips said, but it’s probably not significant. Tropical Storm Enrique appears to be forming behind it, but Southwest Colorado is unlikely to see any moisture from that occurrence.
The weather service never forecasts the amount of precipitation that an area will receive, but the storms coming through in the next few weeks are carrying considerable moisture, he said.
“A lot of these storms have an-inch-an-hour rates,” he said, “so if one hovers over an area, it can drop quite a bit of rain. We have all the moisture there, we just need something to get it going.”
abutler@durangoherald.com
