It’s hot, it’s dry, and the question on many a Southwest Coloradoan’s mind is: Where did monsoon season go?
“What? Those three days around the Fourth of July weren’t enough?” joked Joe Ramey, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
Southwest Colorado had its first taste of monsoon season in late June and early July, with a string of rain showers that kept temperatures cool and fire danger low.
Yet since July 4, the region has suffered from a dry spell, and that’s prompted emergency officials to issue a red flag warning for fire danger this week through much of the Western Slope.
“A westerly kicked in,” Ramey said, “and it just suppressed the moisture down south, and we’ve had a dry couple weeks so far.”
Monsoon season is defined as a change in flow on a seasonal basis, he said. Instead of storms traveling from west to east, like they do from fall to spring, monsoonal summer storms travel north from Mexico, bringing subtropical moisture with them.
Because monsoonal moisture has been suppressed, the three key components that necessitate a red flag warning are in place: low humidity, high winds and critically dry fuels.
However, Ramey said this current dry spell might break by Friday.
“There’s now some pretty strong indications that by Friday moisture will seep up from the south,” he said. “And we’ll potentially be back into a monsoon flow from the south starting Friday and increasing into next week.”
jromeo@durangoherald.com
