{"id":52084,"date":"2020-08-18T23:00:57","date_gmt":"2020-08-18T23:00:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heat-wave-sets-three-consecutive-daily-records-in-cortez\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T09:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:58:13","slug":"heat-wave-sets-three-consecutive-daily-records-in-cortez","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/heat-wave-sets-three-consecutive-daily-records-in-cortez\/","title":{"rendered":"Heat wave sets three consecutive daily records in Cortez"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=375d228b-6606-40bf-9fc3-7fafeb881d77&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"2000\" height=\"1243\" alt=\"Local lakes and rivers are a great way to escape record high temperatures in the Four Corners.\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">Local lakes and rivers are a great way to escape record high temperatures in the Four Corners.<\/span><span class=\"credit\">The Journal file<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>Record high temperatures are searing Cortez and the Four Corners.<\/p>\n<p>A strong area of high pressure over Utah continues to block monsoon moisture from reaching the Four Corners, said James Andrus, weather observer for the National Weather Service.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHot air in this system is setting daily high temperatures,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>On Sunday, Cortez hit 98 degrees, beating the previous recored of 96 degrees recorded on that day in 1951.<\/p>\n<p>On Monday, Cortez warmed to 98 degrees, eclipsing the 2002 record of 96 degrees.<\/p>\n<p>Tuesday, the high of 97 degrees tied the 2002 record.<\/p>\n<p>And Wednesday, a forecast of 95 degrees was expected to set another record, the weather service said.<\/p>\n<p>As of Aug. 13, Montezuma County is in the severe drought category, the third-highest out of five drought level categories, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.<\/p>\n<p>La Plata County is in the extreme drought category, the fourth highest.<\/p>\n<p>Cortez is expected to remain in the high 90\u2019s until Saturday. Sunday\u2019s high is expected to be 96 with a slight chance of thunderstorms.<\/p>\n<p>On Tuesday, Governor Polis issued a statewide open burn ban effective for 30 days because of extreme dry conditions and wildfire danger.<\/p>\n<p>The ban prohibits campfires, fireworks, and other open sources of ignition. Home barbecues, grills, public grills, and camp stoves are allowed for use.<\/p>\n<p>The order conflicts with recent local orders lifting burn bans by Montezuma County, San Juan National Forest and Tres Rios Field Office of the Bureau of Land Management.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mercury climbs as monsoons are blocked<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":52085,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[21,402,13,28,29,88],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-52084","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-cortez","tag-drought","tag-frontpage-lead","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter","tag-weather-news"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52084","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=52084"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52084\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":88039,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52084\/revisions\/88039"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/52085"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52084"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52084"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52084"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=52084"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}