{"id":14157,"date":"2026-01-03T00:33:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-03T07:33:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/more-rain-not-snow-expected-early-next-week-in-lower-parts-of-southwest-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T21:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T03:44:18","slug":"more-rain-not-snow-expected-early-next-week-in-lower-parts-of-southwest-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/more-rain-not-snow-expected-early-next-week-in-lower-parts-of-southwest-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"More rain, not snow, expected early next week in lower parts of Southwest Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Blustery
Blustery winter weather brought a mix of rain and snow late this week across much of Southwest Colorado. The La Plata Mountains were shrouded in clouds Friday afternoon, as seen from the rim of Fort Lewis College. (Richard Ballantine\/Durango Herald)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

The new year brought a brief dip in temperatures across Southwest Colorado, and some parts of La Plata County even saw a light dusting of snow. But for those hoping it marked a turning point toward more typical winter temperatures \u2013 don\u2019t get your hopes up just yet.<\/p>\n

Above-average temperatures are expected to persist for at least the next week, with highs in Durango running about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than normal, said David Byers, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

The chance of snow is slim early next week, but rain showers are expected to start up again Monday and continue on-and-off throughout the week, he said.<\/p>\n

Next week, highs are expected to reach 47 degrees and lows are expected to reach the low- to mid-20s, according to data from the Grand Junction National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

\"Going
Going into the new year, temperatures are expected to remain higher than usual in Durango and across Southwest Colorado. Intermittent rainfall is likely at lower elevations. (Christian Burney\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Although temperatures have been higher than average across all elevations \u2013 Silverton was about 15 degrees warmer than average around the New Year\u2019s \u2013 Byers said the region\u2019s snowpack is in good shape.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe San Juans actually aren\u2019t doing too bad on their snowpack,\u201d he said. \u201cIn the last couple of weeks, its improved.\u201d<\/p>\n

When can the Durango expect to see some colder weather? Possibly at the end of next week.<\/p>\n

A deep trough system looks like it may move across the area, dropping temperatures back to normal, but after it moves on, Byers expects temperatures will rise back to above-average levels.<\/p>\n

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

Don\u2019t panic just yet, meteorologist says: Snowpack is doing OK<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14158,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,994,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-14157","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-trueanthem","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14157","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=14157"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14157\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19358,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14157\/revisions\/19358"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14157"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14157"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14157"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=14157"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}