Thursday Update Monthly Totals–Moisture Returns Next Week

9/15/22 Thursday 8:20 am

Yesterday was a pretty nice change of pace for a good portion of the forecast area. If things come together the way that the models are indicating for Tuesday through Saturday of next week, September will end up with above to well above average precipitation. More on that later.

Yesterday’s rain motivated me this morning to go and update all of the networked weather stations throughout the forecast area where I gather data. There are still a few stations that have been offline for a few months. I did not delete them, hopefully, people will fire them back up for the winter. There are a ton of new ones out there. People’s interest in the weather locally seems to be increasing.

I was more interested in monthly totals rather than recent totals. What I found was the far northern portions of the forecast area (Montrose, Ridgway, Telluride, and Ouray) have had a pretty dry month overall. The totals started increasing from Silverton down to the Purgatory area and over to Ridgway as well as the Central locations. Eastern portions of the forecast area and around Bayfield have done pretty well. The majority of the rest of the forecast area is running slightly below to well below average precipitation.

Here are some totals for the month so far.

Far Northern Locations

Telluride 0.45 to 0.65

Ouray 0.29

Ridgway 0.26

Montrose 0.39

North Central Locations

Silverton 1.30

Rico 1.31

Hermosa Cliffs 1.83

Lakewood Meadows 2.15

Twilight Peaks 2.11

Central Locations

Glacier Club 1.13

Northwest of Hermosa 3.39

Bar D Ranch 2.04

Falls Creek 1.57

Cottonwoods 1.14

Southern Locations

Mancos in town 0.53

Hesperus 1.11

Durango West II 1.03

Lake Durango 0.76

Rafter J 0.93

Durango in town .36 – 1.03

Edgemont 1.09

Loma Linda 0.75

Ignacio 0.58

Florida Mesa 0.65

Elmore’s Corner 0.60

Eastern Locations

North of Gem Village 3.39

Bayfield 1.41

South of Bayfield 1.11

Bear Creek 1.60

Forest Lakes 1.25

South of Vallecito 0.97

North Vallecito 2.13

Los Ranchitos 0.88

Pagosa in town 0.86

South Fork 0.33

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Our highly variable terrain in SW Colorado is responsible for orographic influences which, depending on the storm track, can lead to dramatic differences in precipitation totals within a couple of miles of locations.

Over the next couple of days, our precipitation will be back to isolated afternoon convective showers. Many areas will be dry. The models are showing a deep trough off of the California Coast early next week. As it moves east the models are showing the trough moving east into the Great Basin and channeling a huge batch of sub-tropical moisture right into the forecast area.

Here is an early look at what the models are seeing for precipitation totals Tuesday through Saturday. It is probably too early to look at these because things can always change. However, there is amazing agreement among the models for it being several days away, so here you go.

GFS