Telluride – Durango Weather Guy

10/21/26 Wednesday 12:30 pm

The models initialized pretty well on rain start times across the forecast area. That is encouraging or scary depending on your perspective.

While I am thinking about it, keep this in the back of your mind. If you have watched any weather media lately, you have probably heard about Super Typhoon Champi (pronounced Chompy). Champi is big enough that it could recurve all the way from Asia to Alaska’s Bering Sea, wreaking complete havoc on the fishing fleet (probably ending up in next year’s Deadliest Catch episodes).

From there it could slide down the Canadian Coast, then the Pacific Northwest Coast, slide all the way down to the Central/Southern California Coast, and end up as a big storm in our backyards. I don’t have models that track that far yet; this is pure intuition. I might be wrong; I’ll have a better idea in 7-10 days when the models can pick it up.

I got dangerously close to heading down the rabbit hole there…

The WPC NOAA Weather Prediction Center) finally updated their ERO (Excessive Rain Outlook) today; nothing like waiting until the last minute.

Here are the latest crazy model runs. I will not be surprised when the reports are logged if we see totals higher than forecast guidance.

These forecast totals run from 6 am this morning through Sunday night.

T=Telluride C=Cortez M=Mancos D=Durango B=Bayfield P=Pagosa Springs WC=Wolf Creek Pass

NBM

German

GFS AI

European

Canadian

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10/21/26 Wednesday 3:30 am

Overview

Showers should start moving into the western forecast area this morning, then late morning to around noon across the northern and central portions, and early afternoon in the eastern portions. At least that is what the latest models are forecasting (so it could change a bit)

I have very few changes overall. One thing I am watching is dropping snow levels for Saturday and Sunday. This could change, but for now it looks like they could drop below pass level.

I have given it thought, and I have decided not to treat the weekend totals as a separate event. Models don’t always do a great job defining start and stop times, especially with successive systems.

That is why, even though they are different systems (one ending Friday afternoon and another starting Friday evening), we’ll use model guidance for totals between now and Monday morning. As I said, I am more concerned with the overall totals than trying to determine starts, stops, and lulls.

We have a lot of new people and some longtime followers who need a refresher, so I made cheat sheets for the forecast maps.

T=Telluride C=Cortez M=Mancos D=Durango B=Bayfield P=Pagosa Springs WC=Wolf Creek Pass

Going forward, I will include these “cheaters” every time I post forecast maps. All of these maps show total liquid equivalent precipitation from Wednesday through Sunday evening

German Model: Further clarification on map locations correlated with forecast amounts shown. 1.65=Telluride, 2.46=Cortez, 5.44=NE of Bayfield near Upper Pine Fire Station number 8, 5.74=Pagosa Springs