{"id":25440,"date":"2024-10-05T22:11:39","date_gmt":"2024-10-06T04:11:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-monsoon-season-ended-dry-in-montezuma-county\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T23:17:48","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T05:17:48","slug":"the-monsoon-season-ended-dry-in-montezuma-county","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/the-monsoon-season-ended-dry-in-montezuma-county\/","title":{"rendered":"The monsoon season ended dry in Montezuma County"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=6b37698d-fe42-5e84-9d45-22a87e8a250e&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"2280\" alt=\"The sun sets at Sutcliffe Vineyards. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">The sun sets at Sutcliffe Vineyards. (Cameryn Cass\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n<p>The monsoon season ended not with rain, but with a hot, dry whimper.<\/p>\n<p>Precipitation in September was 34% of normal, with a mere 0.51 inches of rain. That\u2019s nearly an inch less than the month\u2019s average of 1.48 inches.<\/p>\n<p>Even so, Montezuma County remains drought free.<\/p>\n<p>Previous months \u2013 especially June and July, which were 486% and 204% of normal, respectively \u2013 helped push us beyond the average year to date precipitation, which is 108% of normal.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt deserves paying attention to,\u201d said James Andrus, a weather observer in Cortez for the National Weather Service. \u201cFor the next week, we have nothing but sunny and warm weather forecast. Not a hint of rain, not even a 10% chance of rain.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Andrus attributed the dry end of September to the La Nina weather pattern.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cLa Nina episodes are commonly associated with drier weather in the Southwest. In the wintertime it can also mean colder weather too,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cSometimes the pattern\u2019s a joker and the joker in the deck doesn\u2019t conform to the classic La Nina pattern. Even if we\u2019re in the middle of a La Nina pattern, we can have different episodes of weather.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As far as temperatures go, \u201cwe\u2019ve got some interesting temperature quirks,\u201d Andrus said. Several steamy days in late September proved record- breaking.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt feels like July weather out here, not October,\u201d Andrus said.<\/p>\n<div class=\"naviga-element naviga-x-im-unordered-list\">88 degrees on Sept. 27 broke the 2001 record of 86 degrees. 89 degrees on Sept. 28 broke the 2010 record of 88 degrees. 90 degrees on Sept. 29 broke the 2001 record of 86 degrees. 87 degrees on Sept. 30 tied the 2010 record of that same temperature.<\/div>\n<p>\u201cWe\u2019ve got a strong, high-pressure ridge embedded over the western United States, and it\u2019s just filled with hot, dry air,\u201d said Andrus. \u201cWhat we need is that high pressure ridge to collapse, and get replaced by some low pressure troughs coming in from the Pacific. It\u2019d cool us off and perhaps even bring us some moisture.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>On Sept, 29, that 90 degrees record temperature \u201cbecame the latest occurrence of a 90-plus degree day in any year for Cortez, resetting the old last-occurrence record of 91 degrees set on Sept. 21, 1937,\u201d Andrus said.<\/p>\n<p>That record got re-reset Oct. 1, which became the first 90-degree day we\u2019ve ever experienced in October.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou might say it\u2019s a little flag, reminding us of the global warming situation,\u201d Andrus said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>September saw almost an inch less of rain than usual, and record-breaking hot days<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25441,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-25440","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25440","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=25440"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25440\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":78937,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25440\/revisions\/78937"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25441"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25440"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25440"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25440"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=25440"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}