{"id":38314,"date":"2022-09-18T22:38:27","date_gmt":"2022-09-19T04:38:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heavy-rainstorms-expected-wednesday-and-thursday\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T02:43:43","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:43:43","slug":"heavy-rainstorms-expected-wednesday-and-thursday","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heavy-rainstorms-expected-wednesday-and-thursday\/","title":{"rendered":"Heavy rainstorms expected Wednesday and Thursday"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Durango
Durango received 2 to 3 inches of rain during the month of the July. (Jerry McBride\/Durango Herald file)<\/span>cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

Southwest Colorado could see 1 to 2 inches of rain over the next two days, according to the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

The forecast for Wednesday and Thursday shows heavy rain beginning Wednesday and continuing through Thursday.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt looks like Wednesday and Thursday, the potential for heavy rain is high \u2013 or at least the potential for a prolonged soaking rain,\u201d said Kris Sanders, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.<\/p>\n

The forecast shows similar results for Montezuma County \u2013 there\u2019s a 90% chance of rain Wednesday through Thursday. A flood watch has been issued in Cortez and its surrounding areas.<\/p>\n

Heavy rain is also expected on Wednesday and Thursday in Pagosa Springs. Forecasts show a 90% chance of rain and thunderstorms that will carry on through Thursday night. NWS has issued a flood watch for the Pagosa Springs area through Thursday night.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s been a better monsoon season than last year, with 5.7 inches of rain at the Durango-La Plata County Airport since June 1, compared with 3.7 inches in 2021.<\/p>\n

A SNOTEL near Purgatory Resort showed the high country received 9.5 inches of rainfall in 2022, compared with 6.5 inches in 2021, Sanders said.<\/p>\n

But don\u2019t count on a wet, cool fall in Southwest Colorado.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe look at the Climate Center prediction, and the signal there is showing that the chances for below-normal precipitation this fall are higher than above-normal precipitation,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n

Still, the monsoonal rain could improve a melting snowpack in spring: the damper the soil, the better the spring runoff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI know it helps the drought. Typically when you are in a big drought, and then you get the snowpack to start melting, more of it\u2019s going to get soaked up into the soil as opposed to running off down the creeks and rivers,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n

Projections show that Southwest Colorado is headed toward another La Ni\u00f1a winter, meaning it could be a down year for snowfall.<\/p>\n

La Ni\u00f1a refers to the periodic cooling of ocean surface temperatures in the central and east-central equatorial Pacific Ocean. The phenomenon can cause cold and stormy weather patterns across the northern United States and warmer, less stormy conditions in southern areas.<\/p>\n

\u201cTypically, a La Ni\u00f1a winter doesn\u2019t fare too well as far as snowfall for the season. It tends to be on the lower-than-normal side,\u201d Sanders said.<\/p>\n

This may indicate warmer early winter months with more snow arriving at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

tbrown@durangoherald<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Precipitation provides last push of moisture heading into fall season<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":38315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[950,28,60,29,445,414],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-38314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-montezuma-county","tag-newsletter","tag-newsletter-lead","tag-weather"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38314","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=38314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":83991,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38314\/revisions\/83991"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/38315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38314"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=38314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}