{"id":100453,"date":"2018-04-12T14:59:55","date_gmt":"2018-04-12T20:59:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/unsettled-weather-heading-to-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2018-04-12T14:59:55","modified_gmt":"2018-04-12T20:59:55","slug":"unsettled-weather-heading-to-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/unsettled-weather-heading-to-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Unsettled weather heading to Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Firefighters
Firefighters responded to a wildland fire in March in Montezuma County. Local firefighting agencies have issued \u201cno burn\u201d days in response to dry, warm and windy conditions.<\/span>The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Over the next several days, Montezuma County is expected to see a red flag warning, wind gusts up to 60 mph, highs near 60 degrees, lows close to 20 degrees, and another near-miss storm that\u2019ll snub the southern San Juan Mountains.<\/p>\n

So all in all, another normal day for Southwest Colorado weather.<\/p>\n

According to the National Weather Service in Grand Junction, a red flag warning is in effect until 8 p.m. Thursday for Southwest Colorado as high winds coupled with dry conditions present critical fire danger.<\/p>\n

The strong winds are a result of a cold front and storm approaching from the southwest, which presents the possibility of precipitation, said Dan Cuezas, a technician for the NWS in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

In Montezuma County, there\u2019s a chance of rain and snow showers before midnight that lasts until 4 a.m. Lows will be around 28 degrees, and winds are expected to be around 25 to 35 mph, with gusts up to 50 mph.<\/p>\n

Friday should be partly sunny with a high near 47 degrees, with wind gusts again as high as 40 mph. The unsettled weather should be out of the region by Saturday morning, Cuezas said.<\/p>\n

Saturday is expected to be mostly clear with a high near 60 degrees.<\/p>\n

In the high country of the San Juan Mountains, there\u2019s a slightly better chance for precipitation, but not much as the storm, like it has done so many times this winter, takes a northerly route.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat\u2019s the trend this season,\u201d Cuezas said. \u201cThe snowpack up north isn\u2019t horrible, but down south it is.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around Silverton, there\u2019s a 40 percent chance of snow showers after 4 p.m. Thursday, which may continue on and off until Saturday morning.<\/p>\n

New snow accumulation could be around 1 to 2 inches, Cuezas said. Winds during this time are also expected to be intense, with gusts up to 60 mph.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou may get some snow in the mountains, but nothing to get excited about,\u201d Cuezas said.<\/p>\n

Snowpack in Southwest Colorado is dropping fast.<\/p>\n

As of Thursday, the Animas, Dolores, San Juan and San Miguel basins were at 36 percent of normal historic averages, the lowest in the state.<\/p>\n

jromeo@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

winds, cold front, possible snow are forecast<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":100454,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5736,5735],"tags":[13,88,84],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-100453","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local-news","category-news","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-weather-news","tag-wildfire"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100453","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100453"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100453\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100454"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100453"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100453"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100453"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=100453"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}