7/13/26 Monday 1 pm

I got multiple inch-plus reports of 1.00 to 2.00 inches of rain. Mid-elevation areas a couple of miles on either side of HWY 160 was the apparent storm track.

By definition, the most saturated areas have the best chances of heavier rain this afternoon. All models missed those heavy overnight showers.  I will be very happy if this afternoon’s forecast verifies.

All models are indicating a bullseye area for this afternoon. Likely after 3 pm, but maybe much later. This area runs from approximately the Hesperus Ski area to Mancos. It extends north into the La Platas. And South along the RD46 loop and Menefee Mountain. If you live in that area, you know what I’m talking about. If you don’t, you probably don’t care.

That darker shade of green indicates heavier rains and higher totals. Intriguing to have such model consensus for such a small area. They might be wrong. We’ll see. If they are right,  then that may give me better tools during the monsoon season.

As far as timing goes, any time from 3 to 9 pm.  I would be nervous if there was no lightning detection in the forecast area before 3 pm. Before I finished typing that, my weather station detected lightning between 9 and 12 miles away!

By the way, that other bullseye around Vallecito, Lemon, and Forest Lakes is not on all models, unlike the western bullseye.  Not a lot more to talk about. Hopefully we will have some great totals to talk about in the morning!

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07/13/26 Monday 6 am

Beautiful, unexpected rain overnight.  Amounts range from 0.20 to 0.40 across most areas, with higher values favoring the southern forecast area.

The BIG winner was Rafter-J/King Mountain. A very narrow band of heavy showers went over them, leaving up to 2 inches of rain!

Now what? Nothing has changed in the forecast. In fact, I could argue that the saturation portion is complete; showers could start earlier than expected. BUT, the best thing that could happen if you want rain is for the sun to come out quickly! We want to see the atmosphere start “boiling up”.

I see email coming fast and furious, so there must be a lot of reports. I will be back this afternoon after the morning models generate.

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7/12/26 Sunday 1:30 pm

I am feeling pretty confident this change is on the way. It could very well start tomorrow afternoon, but in discussing the timing the other day, I gave my “dry likes to stay dry” caveat. In short, the air will have to be saturated before it can get going.

At the moment, my weather station shows 16.6% humidity and a dew point of 38.

Hopefully this dew point forecast will be correct for 24 hours from now, Monday afternoon. If so, it would get the job done!

I can already hear my high elevation followers wondering about the lower dew points in the mountains. Don’t worry!  Because your temperatures are naturally colder, the air up there doesn’t need to hold as much moisture to reach saturation. It takes a lot less effort for the atmosphere to trigger precipitation at your elevation!

This is what 10 days of afternoon showers look like!

I will post again in the morning.

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07/12/26 Sunday 7 am

I had a slightly later start on my post than I expected this morning. Just wanted everyone to know things still look good for this week!

The overnight European model run looks great and has been very consistent since we started tracking the upcoming pattern change. Here is a very “monsoonal-looking” precipitation forecast for total rain over the next 14 days.

This is exactly what we want to see before the monsoon gets going. I will explain the details later today, likely early afternoon, so check back!

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7/10/26 Friday 8 am

Sorry, I had to cut it short yesterday. Some are probably glad I did because it’s a lot to take in. So I will take us right back to before I left off:

ENSO  (El Niño Southern Oscillation) is responsible for La Niña, El Niño, and neutral conditions. We have only been tracking it since 1950, which is a millisecond in most scientific contexts.

Here is every year since then. What you are looking at are the positive (in red, El Niño years) and negative (in blue, La Niña years). I have identified the years originally considered (analog years), assuming a “Strongest Ever” El Niño. And some new analog years which are currently being considered.

As I mentioned a couple of days ago, historically, the heaviest snow in Durango and Purgatory has fallen in Neutral years (neither El Niño nor La Niña). Not necessarily the case in Telluride, which is even less affected by ENSO status. Now would be a good time to mention El Niño and La Niña are only one of the factors that affect snowfall in the winter. Because there is so much emphasis on them in the Weather media and Ski and Ride media, it is always a good place to start.

As I recall, 2015-2016 was not a bad ski year, mainly because of a few storms that showed up when needed. However, in town, that was not the case, and we had below-average snowfall. 97-98 was a bit of a disaster everywhere.

Let’s go back to the good news. Atmospheric Scientists are studying more recent data (within the past 6 months) linking the upcoming winter to the Very Strong El Niño winter of 1965-1966, as well as the Strong El Niño winter of 1957-1958.

If you blend those two winters equally, here is the (low) pressure setup you get.

I am not getting sidetracked, I promise, but do you remember those old-fashioned barometers? They would usually sit on a shelf or a fireplace. They would show the barometric pressure analog gauge, with a little arrow. It would point to “Stormy” if the barometric pressure was low and to “Clear” if the barometric pressure was high. It was the original weather app!

In short, low-pressure equals storminess. Extended periods of low pressure indicate stormy periods/seasons.

Now that you have seen that, take a look at the recent model forecast anomalies for the upcoming winter.

November, December, January

December, January, February

January, February, March

February March April

You may have noticed that I ran from November through April. Meteorological winter is December, January, February. This model is showing a very active winter AND spring!

Everything still looks good for the pattern change next week. In my post this weekend, we will take a deeper look.

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07/09/26 Thursday 6:00 am

When I first heard about the idea that we would have a record-setting El Niño, my first thought was, wow, that is nearly a year ahead prediction. Then I found out that some of the usual parameters by the usual model were not used.

Ok. Here is another thing: for the last few years ( 4 or 5), NOAA has been trying to retire a couple of weather models. Two of the short-term models are of little use here. But if you head a few hundred miles to our east, they are the short-term models of choice, especially for storm prediction. The reason they don’t work here is our mixed terrain.

Our area struggles with that across all weather models, but the shorter the term and the higher the resolution, the worse they perform with terrain. There is also a new international weather model being discussed; I don’t know much about it, and I will wait until I do more research before drawing a conclusion.

Since earlier El Niño predictive data may have been anomalous (after the bold headline that everyone who has a winter in the US clicked on), Atmospheric Scientists continue to collect data, looking for confirmations of agreement, disagreement, etc.

After reading some of those takes and viewing the model runs that led them to these more recent conclusions, I am seeing where a case could be made for a slightly weaker El Niño (still strong historically), and if correct, would be a setup for a very stormy, snowy winter (if, if, if-I know).

Considering meteorological winter starts in 4 months and 3 weeks, it’s probably timely for me to jump in and start digging through data.

ENSO  (El Niño Southern Oscillation) is responsible for La Niña, El Niño, and neutral conditions. We have only been tracking it since 1950, which is a millisecond in most scientific contexts.

Here is every year since then. What you are looking at are the positive (in red, El Niño years) and negative (in blue, La Niña years). I have identified the years originally considered (analog years), assuming a “Strongest Ever” El Niño. And some new analog years which are currently being considered.

I just looked at the time, and I am afraid I will have to finish this tomorrow morning. Stay tuned for Part 2.

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7/8/26 Wednesday 7:30 am

According to the models, isolated showers are less likely to pop up today. Some models increase the chances over eastern La Plata and most of Archuleta up the west side of the tunnel at Wolf Creek. Again, not everyone, and expect light amounts, if any.

As was the case with most locations, rain accumulations were few and far between. At some point, apparently, 0.01 fell in my weather station. Hundredths were more common than tenths. However, there was something of a bullseye yesterday.  Close to the east side of the Animas (not exactly “on” 250), a couple locations got over 0.30 inches. Better than nothing.

We did not really have high hopes for yesterday. I am getting more (cautiously) optimistic for the upcoming pattern change for next week.  I can’t pinpoint the exact date, but I have been using “around the 17th” for a while now, so I will stick with that temporarily. Most models actually show afternoon showers starting by Tuesday. We will see.

Here is the regional view of a few afternoons next week. I did not cherry-pick; they all look similar and strengthen into the weekend (7/18) .

One could easily say these afternoon showers have a definite Monsoonal “like” signature. The thing about the Monsoon years, when it happens, it happens quickly. At times you have to recognize it in hindsight.

Tuesday 7/14

Thursday 7/16

Friday 7/17

Saturday 7/18

You get the idea…

Bring it on!

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7/07/26 Tuesday 7:30 am

Today will be the best shot of getting a few drops of rain, likely until the weekend. Not a lot, and not everyone; it will be isolated.

Isolated thunderstorms have a good chance of developing from around Purgatory and northward to Ouray.  These thunderstorms are likely to drift off the higher terrain southward, to the mid elevations between 1 and 3 pm. Finally, the lower elevations will have a chance of a couple of showers, mainly north of hwy 160.

In my last post, I talked about the potential for a major pattern change arriving after the 17th. I am getting encouraged with what I have seen since then.  In fact, we may not have to wait that long- it may only be a week out!

Here are the new forecast totals from Monday the 13th through Monday the 20th.

GFS

A couple of caveats. It seems like I say this every post. Dry likes to stay dry, wet likes to stay wet. It may take a while to saturate the atmosphere. But this would certainly be more than enough to do that!

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07/05/ 26

When is the monsoon going to start? What happened to Super El Niño? When is it going to rain even a little? Does this summer tell us anything about the coming winter?

There is an outside chance we could see a few drops of rain Monday and Tuesday.  But it is a “so you’re saying we got a chance” chance. I don’t want to think about the potential for a dry thunderstorm. In fact, I was silently thinking yesterday that this has been right up there among the worst weeks I have ever experienced; the only way it could get worse is if we were evacuated because of a fire. But I did not say it out loud, so moving on…

For me, if the monsoon has not arrived by mid-July, it is late. So we are going to be cutting it close, assuming something happens by next weekend- which I can’t really say right now. But I am watching for signs.

As you have read many times in my posts,  dry likes to stay dry, wet likes to stay wet. It takes a lot to break a stubborn pattern like this one.  Ideally, a little leftover moisture from a dying hurricane or tropical depression curving into the Southwest. According to the National Hurricane Center, no tropical development is expected in the next 7 days. So that is highly unlikely.

Looking out towards the end of the GFS and European model runs, they both see  moisture arriving after the 17th. The 17th is a long way away for operational models. So I have to shelve that for now. In fact, I read that “they” are going to reduce the number of East Pacific hurricanes expected this year. Simple math: the CPAC/EPAC season starts earlier than the Atlantic season, so technically part of their season is already gone.

Long-range models are better suited to examining potential pattern changes. So let’s look at some of those.

Here are the extended positive precipitation anomaly forecasts for our region. These are not the forecasted amounts; add them to the average rainfall amounts for those weeks. Weeks start today and continue.

Week 1 European (brown equals negative anomaly)

GFS Week 1

European Week 2-Remember we discussed after July 17th

GFS Week 2

European Week 3 (Green equals positive anomaly)

GFS Week 3

European Week 4

GFS Week 4

European Week 5

GFS Week 5

Cumulative 5-week anomaly- European

GFS

Lots of graphics! In short, the Long Extended GFS and European show a period of above-average rainfall starting after the 17th through at least August 8th! Let’s hope!

Next up: Super El Niño (Formerly known as Very Strong El Niño).

Here is a little piece of information that you won’t get anywhere else. For an El Niño to be officially logged in history, it has to continue showing anomalously above-average sea surface temperatures for 7 months!  So right now, it can only be referred to as “El Niño-like conditions. NOAA’s (CPC) Climate Prediction Center says there is a 63% chance of a Very Strong El Niño developing as we approach winter. They release ENSO (El Niño) updates once a month; the next should be out a week from tomorrow.

Whether it beats our 2015-2016 Very Srong El Nino, (strongest peak on record). 1997-1998 is the second strongest on record followed by 1982-1983. I remember trying to drive from Iowa to Colorado around Christmas  of 1982 through a massive ice storm in Nebraska.

Here is the bad news, historically El Ninos don’t treat us well.  The heaviest snowfall years in our area were neither El Ninos, nor La Ninas. The heaviest snow in our area has fallen during Neutral ENSO years, often called “La Nada”.

That being said El Nino does not guarantee a bad snow year. too early to worry. Plus according to NOAA there is a 37% chance we will not have a Very Strong El Nino this year.

I was just proof reading and thought I better address my horrible week comments. A week ago I got the question I was not quite prepared for. “Who are you?” At first I thought she was joking, it only took a couple of minutes for me to realize that was not the case. I quickly grabbed an old picture of from 33 years ago, and said, “See this guy, that’s me, and beautiful lady with me is you”.  She has not said anything like that since. Compounding the week, we determined she must of accidentally thrown away her dental hardware, if it was difficult to communicate before this made even more difficult.

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Saturday 6/27/26

Yesterday was tough; I kept putting it off. Probably two weeks. It made me take a complete Macro look at everything. When you are experiencing it, you will think, “Well, that is new. That is different.”Days pass so quickly, by the time you realise you are dealing with a new set of circumstances, you have already justified the others in your head.

SO: Sorry, a better rested me might have sailed through this.

But I especially don’t take the troll criticism well, not right now anyway. Faking! really! I should probably be strong, but 4 out of 7 days, that is not the case. I will regret this, but AI analyses a lot of this to help me with care. I know it sounds crazy. Here was the latest audio tonight.

I forwarded this to Gemini Flash 3.5  and here was the analysis:

 

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