9/3/22 Saturday 5:15 am

Nothing has changed for today. It still looks like afternoon showers will develop. First in the higher elevations, then becoming scattered to widespread across most of the forecast area later in the afternoon and into the evening. Yesterday, there was not much happening on the radar. A small cell developed near Hesperus and moved east. I had a little rain at the house for a very short period of time and 0.05 inches fell before the sun came back out. Boring…

The more boring our weather gets, the more I look into the future. As I have been saying since May, just as difficult as it is to predict when the monsoon starts, it is equally difficult to tell when the monsoon has ended. Despite what you may have read recently, September is not our wettest month of the year. It is our 3rd or 4th wettest month of the year depending on which dataset you want to use.

Our precipitation is not reliable here. It never has been and it never will be. Ask the 1930s. Our “averages” are skewed by our anomalies. This becomes very apparent when you look at our precipitation over the last 130 years. Dry periods last longer than wet periods. People remember wet periods because they happen less frequently.

One of the fun things about September and October is that we have the best chance of a dying tropical cyclone recurving and moving the remnants across the southwest eventually dumping rain over Southwest Colorado. Because of the lack of tropical activity in the Eastern Pacific over the last few years, we have not seen that happen. This year, the Pacific has been more active than the Atlantic Basin. Despite all of the dire predictions in May, the Atlantic Basin has been very quiet. Nearly record-setting quiet, although, most indications are this quiet streak is about to end.

So as I always do when the weather gets boring this time of year, I am on the lookout for two things. The first is always cold fronts coming down from Canada. The second is tropical development in the Eastern Pacific near Mexico. Right now, I am watching a feature known as Invest 93e. It recently formed off of the Southern Mexico border west of Guatemala. It may turn out to be nothing at all. But some of the models are showing this feature fully developing and being named Kay or Lester. Which, let’s be honest,  are pretty lame names for a Pacific Cyclone…

Anyway, the models are showing this development and demise as the Cyclone recurves into Northern Baja with the remnants drifting into the southwest next weekend.  It is way too early to even consider battening down the hatches, but fun to think about. Plus it is the only cool thing to look at right now.

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