{"id":13207,"date":"2026-02-26T22:41:28","date_gmt":"2026-02-27T05:41:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-plagued-by-freakishly-bad-atmospheric-pattern-meteorologists-say\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:36:03","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:36:03","slug":"winter-plagued-by-freakishly-bad-atmospheric-pattern-meteorologists-say","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-plagued-by-freakishly-bad-atmospheric-pattern-meteorologists-say\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter plagued by \u2018freakishly bad\u2019 atmospheric pattern, meteorologists say"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"What
What a difference a week makes. To the left, children enjoy sledding on Feb. 20 at Buckley Park. Six days later, Buckley Park is void of snow with temperatures reaching the low 60s. (Scout Edmondson\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Last week, Southwest Colorado saw enough snow to cancel school and snarl travel. A week later, winter appears to have vaporized \u2013 replaced by clear skies, dry roads and temperatures warm enough for sandals and T-shirts.<\/p>\n

According to the National Weather Service<\/a>, high temperatures in Durango reached 63 degrees Thursday. It is the latest episode of weird winter weather this year.<\/p>\n

Jonathan Harvey, an associate professor of geosciences at Fort Lewis College, said in an email to The Durango Herald<\/em> that winter\u2019s absence is because of stubborn high-pressure ridges steering the jet stream \u2013 a belt of fast-moving winds that separates warm tropical air to the south from cold arctic air to the north \u2013 toward the northern United States.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have spent most of the winter under a \u2018ridge\u2019 in the jet stream, which has prevented cold air and storms from hitting our region,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

That, according to National Weather Service forecaster Lucas Boyer, is because of warm seawater temperatures in the Eastern Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve had ample warm water in the in the Eastern Pacific for a lot of the winter,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019ve really seen the jet stream get pushed north, which means warm air to the south. It\u2019s been really devastating for any kind of snowfall production.\u201d<\/p>\n

Boyer said any storms that have managed to break through that high-pressure ridge were followed by periods of temperatures 10 to 15 degrees above the historical average.<\/p>\n

The storm that materialized last week resulted from a breakdown of that ridge, allowing enough arctic air and a series of fast-moving winter storms to make their way to the Southern Rocky Mountains, Harvey said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe went from near-record highs for most of February to more seasonally appropriate temperatures as those storms came through,\u201d he said. \u201cUnfortunately, the ridge re-formed rather quickly afterward. With the higher sun angles of February and plenty of warmer-than-normal air still present south of the jet stream, we got right back up to high temperatures again.\u201d<\/p>\n

The sudden oscillation from cold and snowy to warm and sunny is more common at this point in the season as the planet gradually begins to shift from winter to spring, Harvey said.<\/p>\n

Additionally, Boyer said above-average temperatures are expected to persist as winter comes to an end.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur highs for the next week are pretty much holding 10 to 15 degrees over normal,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d say we have a 40% to 60% chance of above-average temperatures heading into May.\u201d<\/p>\n

The warm, dry winter has hurt snowpack in the San Juan Mountains. Boyer said the water equivalent in the San Juan River Basin is at 17% of the historical median, while the snowpack in the San Juan Mountains is 40% to 50% of average.<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, Harvey said there is not much time left for mid-elevation snowpack. But, there is still time for high-elevation snowpack.<\/p>\n

\u201cHigher elevations like Molas and Red Mountain Passes don\u2019t typically reach their peak until mid- to late-April, so there is still time to bolster the high-elevation snowpack to levels that will paint a brighter (less devastating?) picture for the runoff season,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the NWS reported Feb. 12<\/a> that temperatures in the Eastern Pacific are gradually cooling, meaning the stubborn high-pressure could break down. That could mean a more active weather pattern for Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe current two-week forecast models show a much more dynamic jet stream, so I would expect more frequent precipitation events in the first half of March,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cAs long-term residents know, March storms can be cold and snowy or warm and rainy, so we\u2019ll have to see how warm or cold they come in.\u201d<\/p>\n

In retrospect, he said this season\u2019s weird, warm weather is either record-setting or close to the record. In the past century, only the notoriously bad winter of 1980-81 was as warm as this year\u2019s.<\/p>\n

But that, he said, is mostly because of how stubborn the jet stream has been.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery long-term station in our region \u2013 including Grand Junction, Albuquerque, Flagstaff, Alamosa \u2013 have recorded their warmest or second warmest (winter) on record,\u201d Harvey said. \u201cMy take is that while a warming trend to our winters is clearly visible in the long-term records, you don\u2019t get a winter this hot and dry without having some freakishly bad luck with the jet stream.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

snowfall quickly followed by 60-degree temperatures<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,1164,994,414,1163],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-13207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-snow","tag-trueanthem","tag-weather","tag-weather-science"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207","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=13207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18861,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13207\/revisions\/18861"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13207"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=13207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}