{"id":48802,"date":"2021-02-05T00:31:35","date_gmt":"2021-02-05T07:31:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-recovering-in-southwest-colorado-but-intense-drought-lingers\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:44:57","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:44:57","slug":"winter-recovering-in-southwest-colorado-but-intense-drought-lingers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/winter-recovering-in-southwest-colorado-but-intense-drought-lingers\/","title":{"rendered":"Winter recovering in Southwest Colorado, but intense drought lingers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Lizard
Lizard Head Pass, at 10,222 feet elevation, has several feet of snow, but the region is still in the highest drought level.<\/span>Jim Mimiaga\/The Journal<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A shot of winter weather has put Southwest Colorado in contention for a normal snow year, but La Ni\u00f1a could get in the way.<\/p>\n

Recent snowfall put Cortez precipitation near the 30-year average for January and the winter season, said Jim Andrus, local weather observer for the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n

Mountain snowpack also made decent gains.<\/p>\n

For Cortez, January had .78 inches of precipitation, which is 89% of the normal .88 inches for the month. The total includes snow-water equivalent of the snowfall.<\/p>\n

When just snowfall is measured, Cortez was above average for January, Andrus said. About 11.5 inches of snow came down, which is 111% of the normal 9.7 inches.<\/p>\n

For the winter season to date, Cortez has had 20.1 inches of snow, or 95% of the average 21.2 inches through January. The winter season is from October to May.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got a good start for 2021, but we have a lot of ground to cover,\u201d Andrus said.<\/p>\n

The San Juan Mountains saw improved snowpack in late January.<\/p>\n

On Feb. 4, snow-water equivalent for the Dolores Basin portion of the San Juans was 79% of the average, up from 64% of average on Jan. 11.<\/p>\n

The combined snow water equivalent for the San Miguel, Dolores, Animas and San Juan Basins was 82% of normal, as of Feb. 4.<\/p>\n

The Telluride ski area reported a 46-inch base Feb. 4, with 6 inches in the past 24 hours. Conditions were powder and packed powder.<\/p>\n

Purgatory reported a 46-inch base and 3 inches of fresh snow in the past 24 hours. Conditions were packed powder and powder.<\/p>\n

Andrus said recent low pressure in the region helped to draw the jet stream further south, and with it came three good storms.<\/p>\n

Variations in upper air patterns have increased the chances for meaningful precipitation, he said.<\/p>\n

But there is a lot of catching up to do.<\/p>\n

Southwest Colorado remains in the exceptional drought category, the highest of five drought levels, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The dry spell stems from 2020, which saw just 6.49 inches of precipitation in Cortez, or 52% of the normal 12.7 inches.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019d use two words to describe why: La Ni\u00f1a,\u201d said Andrus.<\/p>\n

The weather phenomenon is caused when the equatorial Pacific cools below average, which can lead to a winter storm pattern that does not favor the Southwest.<\/p>\n

Its opposite, El Ni\u00f1o, is when the Equatorial Pacific warms above the average, which increases probability for a more southern storm track through the Four Corners in winter.<\/p>\n

La Ni\u00f1a is expected to continue through the Northern Hemisphere through the winter, with a 55% chance of transitioning to neutral in spring, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.<\/p>\n

The Cortez weather forecast shows a warming trend, with highs in mid-to-high 40s through next Thursday, according to the weather service.<\/p>\n

jmimiaga@the-journal.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Precipitation averages creep up, but drought lingers<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":48803,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,341,402,13,28,29,199,1164,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-48802","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-dolores-river","tag-drought","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-san-juan-national-forest","tag-snow","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48802","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=48802"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48802\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87461,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48802\/revisions\/87461"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48803"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48802"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48802"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48802"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=48802"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}