Good to be back in CO, although spending a week in the wine country of northern CA wasn't so bad either, especially with great friends. Looks like we had some good precip while I was gone, nearly 1.5 inches recorded on Conifer Mountain in August so far. Normal for August is around 2.75 inches, so we still have some room for additional moisture.
Upper ridge is building across the Great Basin, which will warm temps across CO this weekend and keep things mostly dry, only isolated chances for showers and thunderstorms across the High Country. Flow aloft will be from the northwest which will continue to import smoke from many fires across the western states. Smoke is even worse in WY and MT. Wind direction is forecast to become more westerly next week, so smoke should be less than current levels by Monday.
As the upper ridge breaks down as an upper trough off the CA coast approaches next week, precip chances should increase, especially across the mountains and foothills, lower chances for the plains where lower levels will remain fairly dry. Likely to see typical afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms Monday through next weekend as better monsoon flow returns to CO. Appears monsoon activity will persist across CO towards the end of the month, which will keep most areas in lower fire danger. The monsoon has been stronger than average across AZ with most stations at 100% to 400% of their normal monsoon precip through the end of August.
The latest 3 month climate outlook from the Climate Prediction Center has CO under average to slightly above average temps, and near average precip for the September to November period. This seems consistent with a neutral ENSO index.
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"Climatology is what you expect, Weather is what you get".
"It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong".
Too bad future generations aren't here to see all the great things we are spending their $$ on!!
