{"id":138375,"date":"2026-07-09T18:11:22","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:11:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heat-wave-to-hit-cortez-this-weekend\/"},"modified":"2026-07-09T18:11:22","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T00:11:22","slug":"heat-wave-to-hit-cortez-this-weekend","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heat-wave-to-hit-cortez-this-weekend\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat wave to hit Cortez this weekend"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Swimmers
Swimmers take a dip in Jackson Gulch Reservoir, the scenic lake located five miles north of Mancos, in June. The National Weather Service warns a significant heat wave is coming to western Colorado this weekend and potentially lasting through early next week in some parts of the region. (Anna Watson\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Drink plenty of fluids, stay indoors, and avoid the sun, all while checking up on animals, relatives and neighbors.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service issued those recommendations as heat is expected to blanket portions of eastern Utah and western Colorado this weekend.<\/p>\n

On Thursday afternoon, the weather service issued an extreme heat warning beginning noon Saturday and lasting until Sunday late-evening where hot conditions may range from 97 to 102 degrees locally.<\/p>\n

The localized heat advisory<\/a> is affecting the Four Corners Region and Upper Dolores River area, Mesa Verde National Park, and cities such as Cortez, Dove Creek, Mancos and Towaoc.<\/p>\n

The warning states heat-related illnesses pose higher threats during these events. Excessive heat may adversely affect vulnerable populations such as very young children, people who are older or those who experience chronic illnesses.<\/p>\n

\u201cNear-record high temperatures are possible during this event, especially on Sunday during the peak,\u201d the NWS said.<\/p>\n

NWS Meteorologist Brooke Scholtens in Grand Junction said the current forecast could reach 99 degrees in Cortez for Saturday and 97 degrees on Sunday.<\/p>\n

The projections are not quite record-breaking. The all-time Cortez high for the month of July was set in 2021, clocked at 103 degrees.<\/p>\n

\u201cSeek shade when possible and stay out of the sun during peak heating, from noon and up until 6 p.m.\u201d Scholtens said. \u201cThe other note is, the nighttime is not going to recover in terms of temperatures \u2013 usually you see cooling off for majority of the night.\u201d<\/p>\n

National forecasters are seeing an upper-level ridge building in the southwest acting as a heat dome over the next few days, and a stagnant sun that\u2019s appearing to mean the region could hold onto heat.<\/p>\n

High temperatures may prolong into early next week \u2013 at least until Monday \u2013 for the region. According to the NWS forecast, Grand Junction and Moab may see triple-digit highs starting every day from Friday through Wednesday, with Delta experiencing similar conditions.<\/p>\n

Critical fire weather conditions mainly focus on southeast Utah and southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

On Monday, there\u2019s a 30-50% chance of thunderstorms in Cortez, Scholtens said.<\/p>\n

awatson@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Saturday\u2019s projected high may reach 99 degrees<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":138376,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[21,28,60,29,6419,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-138375","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-cortez","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-tj-trueanthem","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"Website Administrator","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138375","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=138375"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/138375\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/138376"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=138375"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=138375"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=138375"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=138375"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}