From the Telluride Daily Planet (Kathrine Warren):
It’s officially monsoon season. This week’s heavy afternoon rainstorms are expected to continue through the weekend and the beginning of next week. The National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for the Western Slope and Southern Utah through at least Friday, according to NWS meteorologist Joe Ramey. On Monday and Tuesday a series of localized rainstorms down valley triggered major mudslides that shut down Highway 145 while crews cleared mud, trees, rocks and other debris from the road…
Ramey said monsoon season is the result of a change in the way moisture moves off the Pacific Ocean. “In the summer, because the pole and the equator are both warm and there’s less of a temperature difference, the westerlies weather pattern shifts north,” he said. Typically Southwest Colorado gets its moisture off the coast of California and this shift pulls moisture from southern Mexico into the area. “We kind of get into the tropics,” Ramey said. He said it takes three ingredients for heavy afternoon storms: moisture, a lifting mechanism and instability. “We always have the lifting mechanism, the San Juans, we’re usually lacking the moisture, but we have copious amounts now, and the heat and warmth of the summer gives us that instability,” Ramey said. The storm pattern will linger longer than usual because of a high-pressure system to the east that is preventing the moisture to move out of the area.
From The Durango Herald (Ann Butler):
The National Weather Service has declared a flash-flood warning from noon to 9 p.m. today for all of Western Colorado up to the Wyoming state line and west into the southeastern quarter of Utah. It will be the third day in a row when heavy rains and flash flooding are possible. “It missed you today, but it may not miss you tomorrow,” meteorologist Jim Pringle with the Grand Junction office of the weather service said Wednesday evening. “There’s a good probability you’ll see some tomorrow.” Weather service forecasters said flash floods are most likely in the steep terrain of the southwestern San Juan Mountains and along the narrow slot canyons in southeastern Utah…
His office had received reports of half an inch of rain in 30 minutes at the official climate station in Cortez, and radar showed more than 2 inches in the western two-thirds of San Miguel County, where it is too sparsely populated for on-the-ground reporting. “Most significant rainfall on Wednesday occurred in some pretty remote areas,” he said. “It just wasn’t in Southwest Colorado. Garfield and Rio Blanco counties both received in excess of 2 inches,” Pringle said…
Heavy rains in the mountains west of Boulder washed out a road two miles northwest of Nederland.