Winter 2013-2014 Colorado Weather Thread (Durango: insurance, gated, costs)

[DOUBLE H]

The storm went around the Grand Junction area and the Bookcliffs range. But the Grand Mesa got some much needed snow. KKCO reports Rabbit Ears Pass closed till tomorrow morning.

[Neditate]

Five days in a row of very high winds. Today has been the worst with 83 mph, 81 mph, 77 mph gusts. Many in the 60-70 mph range. Sustained winds 25-35 mph. It's been crazy.
I've lived up here for 17 years and we've certainly had high winds before (highest recorded was 92 mph) but never 5 days in a row. We report to the NWS and Denver news stations. Mike Nelson said it's still going to be windy tomorrow.

[Mike from back east]

Part of I-25 near Pueblo was closed today due to winds kicking up so much dust you couldn't see well enough to drive.

[jazzlover]

Yet another dry week predicted for the most of the mountains of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. In many areas, that will make 6 full weeks with almost no appreciable precipitation. Severe fire danger is in the offing for southern California. This is normally the wettest time of year there, and the Pacific off of the southern California coast is where most of the moisture for the southern half of Colorado normally originates for the rest of the winter. Ominous.

[Colorado Rambler]

It's been dry, dry, dry in SW Colorado. I believe the San Juans did get some snow over the weekend - they look like they did, anyhow. But we need more snow than that to increase the snow pack. Doesn't look like we'll be getting it any time soon though. The forecast is for continued mild temps and dry for the next 7 days and beyond.

[jim9251]

I guess this is weather related. FYI HWY 550 at Red Mountain Pass has been closed since Monday due to a rock slide. A large rock slide, that is still sliding. CDOT doesn't know when it will be open.

[jazzlover]

Well, this bleak assessment appeared on the National Weather Service website this morning:

Over the West Coast and into the Inter-Mountain West, a very dry weather
pattern is expected to continue through Tuesday. An unusually strong
upper level ridge for this time of year has put its gear in park mode and
will be stubborn to move in the near future. Although this is providing
pleasant outdoor conditions for January, this is causing the ongoing
drought over much of the western U.S. to deteriorate further. This is
also raising the wildfire threat over the southwestern U.S. where relative
humidities in many areas have dropped to under 15 percent.

The is by far the most stubborn of the dry winter weather patterns over the US Southwest (including much of Colorado) of the last three years. For people like me who have been around this region for a long time, it is strongly reminiscent of the 1976-1977 winter weather pattern. That dry pattern persisted for the entire winter and led to the lowest streamflows in much of Colorado in nearly a century. The summer of 1977 was also brutally hot, with temperatures over 100° F. recorded numerous times in most of the lower elevations of Colorado. The only thing that saved Colorado from some very disastrous fires that year was a relatively vigorous Southwest Monsoon that begin in mid-July.

Unfortunately, things are a lot different (and worse) this time around. Colorado forests were relatively healthy in 1977, not suffering from widespread pine beetle infestations and hundreds of thousands of acres of dead trees as they are now. The 1976-1977 dry winter also came after several years of normal to above-normal precipitation in most areas of the state, not piggybacked on a multi-year ongoing drought. Because of that, reservoir levels and soil moisture levels were in much better shape going into 1977 than they are now in 2014. Finally, and most importantly, Colorado in 1977 was supporting a population of about half of what it is trying to support now on its water supplies. That is true of all the Southwest, and the result of this drought event could prove to be a backbreaker for the region for that reason alone. Stupid human behavior--and overpopulating an arid region has been one of the stupidest human behaviors over all of history--usually begets very cruel and disastrous results.

[jim9251]

Folks here are getting a bit nervous. 60 degrees in mid January? Snowpack is rapidly melting. Although this tshirt weather is nice, I would sure love a few feet of snow.

[Colorado Rambler]

With the exception of that spell of below zero temps near the beginning of the winter, it has been unusually warm in SW Colorado - also unusually dry. I would love to see a bunch of winters come along that were like the one's I can remember that were typical of this region not really all that long ago. I remember it snowing almost every night in Durango. I can remember that the drive from Durango to Mancos to Dolores had to be done over snow packed roads all winter long. A little while back I made that same drive and the roads were clear and the surrounding fields were mostly barren of snow. It's crazy, and I don't like what it implies for our region, as well as our state. I can easily imagine the San Juans being swept by some bad fires next summer. There's just too many dead standing trees up there, and the forests are getting sicker with each season that passes. I can see the time coming when irrigation water for farmers and ranchers will be held for the cities. Agriculture represents only about 13% of Colorado's economy. It's no contest. But we are not supposed to notice such things, never mind write about them. Rah-Rah Chamber of Commerce boosterism still carries the day and people new to Colorado see nothing wrong because they lack points of reference. The price for the coming day of reckoning is going to be huge.

[jazzlover]

^Exactly right, Rambler. The newbies are clueless. A lot of tourist businesses in the southern part of Colorado are now talking about fire preparedness, not what kind of tourist season this will be. Ranchers are talking about whether they will qualify for federal drought assistance, not whether or not they can keep their herds. Farmers that don't have gold-plated senior water rights are trying to decide if they will even plant a crop this year. A lot of domestic water providers are trying to decide when they will impose water use restrictions, not if they will or not.

And, as bad as things are in Colorado, the Lower Basin states are even in more grim shape. I may post some more about that over on the "Colorado and the West is running out of water" thread. This may be the year that "exceeding carrying capacity" becomes a reality for humans in the West.