June 27, 2022

The Valley of the Gods, pictured here, will once again be part of Bears Ears National Monument. (Jonathan P. Thompson | The Land Desk)

Monsoon season in southwest Colorado starts Wednesday

Monsoon season is right on par with typical weather patterns. As drought remains critical in parts of southwest Colorado, the National Weather Service predicts precipitation in the area throughout the rest of the month and into August.

By Sarah Flower

with Matthew Aleksa, National Weather Services Grand Junction Meteorologist

Transcript

Sarah Flower:

The chance of thunderstorms continues in southwest Colorado with the bulk of the storms coming in later this week. Matthew Aleksa is a meteorologist for the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. He says the precipitation that's expected is right on course with rain patterns in years past.

Matthew Aleksa:

Right now we have high pressure overheads. So that moisture is was kind of sitting there and not really going anywhere. And so we're getting daily thunderstorm activity with potential for heavy rain and some of the stronger storms. So I would say we're, you know, right on track for what typical this time of year and we are expecting another surge of moisture increasing further north through the state starting Wednesday evening into Thursday and Friday.

Sarah Flower:

Well, drought concerns are still on the minds of many. Aleksa says recent storms have left about an inch of rain in some areas of the four corners. According to the US Drought Monitor. Southwest Colorado is still experiencing severe to extreme drought conditions, something Aleksa says won't be changing anytime soon.

Matthew Aleksa:

We really haven't seen much change in terms of the drought status. We have seen a change though, over the last month we did have across much of southwest Colorado, Montezuma, La Plata or Archuleta counties, extreme drought. As of right now, that extreme category is now in the south west quarter of southwest Colorado. So pretty much western Montezuma county. And then the rest of the area in the San Juan's is now down to moderate to severe drought in the southern valleys in southern mountains. So there has been some improvement but as far as seeing a drastic improvement in the drought conditions, it would have to take a whole lot of moisture for that to make any huge dent in the conditions.