wxgeek's weather-Warmer and Drier Weather Ahead-Update 7/20

Update Sun Jul 20

Warm and drier pattern looks to persist into most of next week. Upper level ridge centered over southeast NM today, so there is a decent monsoon flow into western CO today, as best precip chances will be from the Divide west, but showers and thunderstorms could develop into the foothills as well this afternoon and evening. Heaviest showers expected to remain west of the Divide though. Models forecast upper level ridge to intensify and move over CO by the middle of the week, so temps expected to remain above seasonal norms through next weekend, and precip chances will remain in the isolated category with best chances along and west of the Divide, but some showers still possible into the foothills. Plains expected to remain mostly dry through next weekend, hence fire danger at lower elevations expected to increase as ground fuels begin to dry out.

Upper ridge is forecast to move west into AZ by next weekend, so flow aloft over CO becomes northwesterly, which may increase precip chances slightly as CO could get clipped by weak disturbances. Still does not look like any extremely heavy precip statewide through next weekend.

In general though, longer range models keep upper ridge over the Desert Southwest into early August, which is not a very good monsoon flow for CO. This will tend to persist our warm and drier pattern, which will also see fire danger levels increase into the foothills. Until the uppr ridge moves father east, this will be our pattern, warm and mostly dry.

I will heading into a 2 week period of business travel and vacation, so will have limited availability to post updates. I will try to post if I see any big changes coming up.

Lastly, latest ENSO outlook has a 75-80% chance of a weak to moderate strength El Nino forming this Fall and Winter. This will hopefully be good news for the drought stricken areas of CA and provide for above aferage snowfall for much of eastern CO, including our foothills.

_________________
"Climatology is what you expect, Weather is what you get".

"It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong".

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A very soggy start to July, with many areas receiving their average or above average monthly totals in the first half of July. It has felt more like coastal California or the Pacific Northwest the past few days, but with much more rain. The soggy pattern looks like it will begin to dry out and temps warm back up beginning Friday. An upper ridge will build from AZ into NM this weekend which will bring warmer temps and drier air into CO. However, the flow aloft will still bring some monsoon moisture from northern Mexico into western CO, mostly west of the Divide but could spill far enough east into the foothills. This will bring isolated afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms from the foothills west, but rain amounts expected to be much lower than past week, instead of 1-2 inches per day, we will look at 0.10 to 0.25 inches per day, so a more typical monsoon/July pattern.

By next week, upper ridge intensifies and becomes centered nearly over CO, which will raise temps well above seasonal norms into triple digits in many lower elevation areas and make afternoon and evening storms harder to form, except over highest terrain. This pattern will persist most of next week into next weekend, so expect warm temps and only isolated afternoon and evening showers and thunderstorms, mostly over the mountains. East of the foothills areas look to remain mostly dry.

Models suggest the following week the upper ridge moves farther east and provide a better monsoon flow, but models have tended to suggest this in longer range periods, but then keep the ridge over the western U.S. in reality. Eventually, the odds are good the upper ridge will move farther east, but once patterns get established, they also tend to persist during the summer, so the ridge could remain over the western U.S. for much of the summer. In typical years, this pattern has kept CO mostly dry, but this year we have had enough low level moisture and small ripples in the flow aloft to trigger impressive storms and rainfall amounts. On Conifer Mountain, we have now surpassed our average July precip of 2.98 inches, and we will likely surpass our record (since 2006) July precip of 3.74 inches soon.

_________________
"Climatology is what you expect, Weather is what you get".

"It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong".

Bump for 7/20 update