Click the link to read the article on the Steamboat Pilot & Today website (Ali Longwell). Here’s an excerpt:
August 26, 2026
As Colorado nears the final month of the 2026 water year, extreme drought is persisting across the state as many regions, including the Western Slope, continue to rack up records when it comes to heat as well as precipitation — and the lack thereof.
“We continue to be way above anything that we’ve seen in the data record for Colorado; we’re about 2 degrees warmer than the previous hottest water year to date on record — that was 1934 — and over 4 degrees warmer than the 1991 through 2020 average,” said Allie Mazurek, engagement climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center, at the Aug. 25 Water Conditions Monitoring meeting of the Colorado Water Conservation Board.
“The dryness has not been quite as remarkable as the warmth, but again, we have ranked as the sixth driest on record through the end of July, and are still among some of the driest water years that we’ve seen,” she added…
The first 10 months of the water year — which kicked off Oct. 1, 2025 — have seen three months rank as the hottest on record and six months fall among the top 10 hottest. While not over, August has already seen above-average temperatures, with many areas averaging 4-6 degrees hotter than normal, including west of the Continental Divide, which Mazurek said has experienced “the most notable warmth compared to average.”…While July and August are not the first months this water year to set these kinds of records — March, for example, saw statewide temperatures nearly 10 degrees above the 30-year average — Mazurek said it does ring a different kind of alarm bell…All in all, Mazurek described the water year so far as “very, very warm,” sitting 4.5 degrees above the average temperatures from 1981 to 2020.
