{"id":77004,"date":"2026-03-30T22:39:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T22:39:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/amid-a-hot-spell-cortez-may-get-a-shower-and-cooldown\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T18:30:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T18:30:13","slug":"amid-a-hot-spell-cortez-may-get-a-shower-and-cooldown","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/amid-a-hot-spell-cortez-may-get-a-shower-and-cooldown\/","title":{"rendered":"Amid a hot spell, Cortez may get a shower and cooldown"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Unusually
Unusually hot temperatures and dry weather characterize this spring in Cortez. This week brings a temporary cool down with rain showers expected. (Ann Marie Vanderveen\/The Journal)<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Monday\u2019s hot and windy conditions will fade into more season-appropriate rain showers and cooler temperatures Tuesday and Wednesday for the Cortez area.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose winds will start settling down this evening,\u201d said National Weather Service forecaster Lucas Boyer. \u201cWe\u2019ll cool off a little bit with this system coming through.\u201d<\/p>\n

However, according to local weather spotter Jim Andrus, the shift will be temporary and likely won\u2019t provide enough moisture to break the drought in Southwest Colorado that is stoking wildfire fears.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe may be going down to the low normal temperature. But it will not be a long duration cold spell,\u201d Andrus said, adding that the 80-degree highs in Cortez have been \u201cpractically unheard of\u201d for March.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Cortez has a chance of afternoon showers, with the likelihood increasing overnight to 80% by midnight Wednesday. Residents can expect rain through the day with intermittent breaks and a chance of thunderstorms, more typical of spring weather than what the area has been seeing.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s been a little bit of a topsy turvy weather pattern here,\u201d Boyer said.<\/p>\n

The National Weather Service issued a winter weather advisory for the San Juan Mountains in areas over 9,000 feet of elevation, starting Tuesday evening and remaining through Wednesday. The snow will not trickle down into Cortez, Dolores or Mancos in any significant way, according to Boyer.<\/p>\n

\u201cMancos is going to be sitting just below the snow line,\u201d Boyer said, adding the area may see a snow and rain mix but no notable accumulation.<\/p>\n

He said people planning to travel through the mountains this week should not expect the summer conditions of the past week and should plan accordingly.<\/p>\n

According to Andrus, temperatures will rebound by next week, returning to the 60s after highs in the 50s and lows in the 20s over the weekend. While he is not optimistic this brief change will cure the region\u2019s water ails, he hopes against all likelihood that it will.<\/p>\n

\u201cLet\u2019s pray for me to be wrong,\u201d Andrus said. \u201cLet\u2019s get a lot of rain.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Short-lived shift could bring rain and lower highs, but drought worries remain<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":77005,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5737,5736,5735,5741],"tags":[28,29],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-77004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-headlines","category-local-news","category-news","category-newsletter","tag-headlines","tag-newsletter"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77004","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=77004"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":77008,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77004\/revisions\/77008"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77005"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77004"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=77004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}