{"id":17049,"date":"2025-08-05T18:23:27","date_gmt":"2025-08-05T18:23:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-danger-may-worsen-as-monsoons-fail-to-appear\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T04:03:29","slug":"fire-danger-may-worsen-as-monsoons-fail-to-appear","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-danger-may-worsen-as-monsoons-fail-to-appear\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire danger may worsen as monsoons fail to appear"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A
A light rain falls on the Elkhorn Fire on Friday north of Durango. The rain was not enough to change fire conditions, and hot, dry weather is expected to persist for the coming months. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Apart from a smattering of light rain storms in recent weeks, the downpours of the monsoons have failed to appear in and around Durango. Looking ahead into August, odds are they will remain elusive.<\/p>\n

According to the National Integrated Drought Information System<\/a>, La Plata County is almost evenly split between severe and moderate drought. Those conditions are likely to persist into the coming weeks, according to meteorologist Kris Sanders.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Climate Prediction Center does a six to 10 day precipitation outlook, and they have chances of below normal precipitation through that period,\u201d Sanders said. \u201cSo unfortunately, it looks like the pattern will continue. There\u2019s just no signal of the monsoon really taking hold.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders said a high-pressure ridge has remained stubbornly situated over the Southern Plains, New Mexico and Texas. That, he said, has shunted the storm track, a path that rain storms follow through the atmosphere, over Northern Colorado.<\/p>\n

\"The
The National Weather Service\u2019s climate outlook for August through October points to above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation. (National Weather Service)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

But, Sanders said, when a storm moves from west to east on that storm track, dry air blows in from the west. Whenever significant moisture was forecast over the past several weeks, that dry air was sucked into the area instead, pushing the storms out of the area. That, he said, is why Durango has remained so hot and dry, even with forecasts that promised rain.<\/p>\n

\u201cEvery time a weather system moves across the north, it is going to bring in that dry air,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s been winning out over the moisture we\u2019ve been getting.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sanders said that pattern will likely continue into the foreseeable future. The National Weather Service\u2019s climate outlook<\/a> for the United States between August and October predicts that the Southwest will see above-average temperatures with below-average precipitation.<\/p>\n

\"The
The National Weather Service\u2019s climate outlook for August through October points to above-average temperatures and below-average precipitation. (National Weather Service)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Cindy Howard, public information officer for the Elkhorn Fire, said those dry conditions are going to increase fire danger.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe extended outlook is still pretty high temps and low relative humidities,\u201d she said. \u201cThe most critical fire day will be on Friday, with gusts of 25 mph or more, so potential for red flag conditions.\u201d<\/p>\n

Howard said that La Plata County and the U.S. Forest Service are expecting fire danger to increase in the coming days and weeks. The forecast, she said, points to high winds and temperatures with little chance for precipitation. Because of that, she said, it is important for residents to be extra diligent not to start any new forest fires.<\/p>\n

\u201cWith the potential for red flag conditions, we are asking the public to avoid any new sparks or any new fire starts,\u201d she said. \u201cConditions where fire growth can expand rapidly are going to increase.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

conditions expected to persist for foreseeable future <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17050,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[350,28,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-17049","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17049","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=17049"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17049\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":20536,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17049\/revisions\/20536"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17050"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17049"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17049"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17049"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=17049"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}