{"id":33897,"date":"2023-05-23T02:59:42","date_gmt":"2023-05-23T08:59:42","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/abnormal-patterns-have-left-moisture-laden-air-swirling-above-sw-colorado\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:14:41","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:14:41","slug":"abnormal-patterns-have-left-moisture-laden-air-swirling-above-sw-colorado","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/abnormal-patterns-have-left-moisture-laden-air-swirling-above-sw-colorado\/","title":{"rendered":"Abnormal patterns have left moisture-laden air swirling above SW Colorado"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Rain
Rain moves through Durango on Thursday afternoon. Showers and thunderstorms are forecast to return to Durango on Friday, with a 90% chance of precipitation. Some storms could produce heavy rain in the region. The National Weather Service has issued a flood watch through 10 p.m. Friday for Southwest Colorado. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald)<\/span>Jerry McBride<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Riders in this weekend\u2019s Iron Horse Bicycle Classic may have a little extra incentive to pedal faster \u2013 the unusually wet afternoon storms that have loitered over the Durango area in recent weeks.<\/p>\n

No, monsoon showers aren\u2019t here yet.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s too early for the M-word to be used,\u201d said Erin Walter, the service hydrologist at the National Weather Service Grand Junction office.<\/p>\n

Monsoon season typically ramps up in July<\/a>, bringing bursts of heavy rainfall similar to what has occurred in recent afternoons.<\/p>\n

Although it is not an early monsoon season, the amount of precipitation this month has been abnormal, Walter confirmed.<\/p>\n

At the Durango-La Plata County Airport, 0.82 inches of rain have fallen this month, exceeding the typical amount of precipitation by one-fourth of an inch. Walter said a low flow pulling moisture from both the Pacific Ocean and the Gulf of Mexico is to blame.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just started rotating over the Four Corners for several days,\u201d Walter said. \u201c\u2026 Every afternoon we\u2019ll start to see those storms because it (moist air) is lifted over the higher terrain. You have good moisture and it is a little bit cooler air overhead, so storms are able to continuously build. Some of them are pretty slow-moving, which is why we saw some good heavy soakers in isolated areas.\u201d<\/p>\n

As moisture-laden air is forced upward by the topography of the San Juan Mountains, it cools and condenses, forming rain droplets. Although the outlook for this weekend is somewhat drier, Walter said that precipitation is still possible in higher elevation zones. Storm systems are expected to build over the San Juans, bringing lightning and wind gusts.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe still have the moisture sitting around, so it\u2019s (thunderstorms) possible almost every afternoon in that high terrain,\u201d Walter said.<\/p>\n

Iron Horse riders must clear Molas Pass by 1:20 p.m., hopefully landing them in Silverton before afternoon storms arrive.<\/p>\n

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

has, in fact, been unusually wet<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31780,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[28,2111,414,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-33897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-headlines","tag-iron-horse-bicycle-classic","tag-weather","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33897","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=33897"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33897\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":82396,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33897\/revisions\/82396"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31780"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33897"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=33897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}