Has Colorado’s monsoon season made a dent in drought conditions? Experts weigh in
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Rinse and repeat has quite literally been the pattern in July and August. Thankfully, those steady afternoon thunderstorms are paying off, with Southern Colorado's drought conditions improving tremendously.
But that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods just yet.
"We've had record-breaking rain in some locations," said Stormtracker 13 Chief Meteorologist Merry Matthews. "We completely mitigated the drought in the Sangre de Cristo area. Parts of the central and northern mountains that had the Cameron Peak fire last year, we have completely mitigated the drought in that area because of all the heavy rain. So there's definitely been some benefits statewide.”
While the rain has mitigated fires, soaked the soil, and helped farmers tremendously, there is still one area suffering.
"Where it hasn't made a big dent is, in the big reservoirs and those sorts of long-running water supply concerns," said Russ Schumacher, Colorado State Climatologist. "The amount of rain we get from the monsoon thunderstorms is a lot of rain in a local area, but it's just not that much water in the grand scheme of things to help build those reservoirs back up.”
Unfortunately, Colorado needs a really an active winter that brings major snowpack to make a substantial difference in the reservoirs.
Schumacher says mountain areas can get over 50 inches of precipitation in the winter, while the Front Range really only sees around 15 inches from summer rainstorms.
While Colorado is in a much better position heading into the fall season this year compared to last, the space between monsoon season ending and winter snowfall beginning could dry us out quickly again.
"The outlook for the fall doesn't look great," said Schumacher. "We're going to be in what looks like our third year in a row of La Nina conditions, which tends to be dry in the fall. So, the seasonal outlooks that just came out do show a tilt towards warmer and drier conditions for most of Colorado. But the good news is at least we're in a much better place going into that than we were last summer or the summer before, where the monsoon season was not nearly as active."
