The flowers and trees are rejoicing! …

Almost an inch in our rain gauge!… Pic taken 6/19/2022

Sunday – 19 Jun 2022 – 10:15am

The past…

At Stevens Field the high yesterday afternoon was 75. The low this morning was 54. Humidity yesterday afternoon bottomed out at 28%. It was 100% most of the night! Winds at the airfield peaked at 22mph yesterday afternoon. We had reports of temporary gusts over 30mph with the showers and thunderstorms.

Area streams are rising and will continue to rise today.

Precip summary… Yay for rain!

*CoCoRaHS 24-hour reports range from 0.32” in the Chromo area to 1.3” in Lost Valley.*

*** Archuleta County has implemented STAGE 1 FIRE RESTRICTIONS and the San Juan National Forest has implemented STAGE 2 FIRE RESTRICTIONS. ***

Forecast discussion…

Our first monsoon surge is in place. Southerly moist flow is over our heads between a strong upper level high over the Central Plains and a trough moving through the Great Basin. Monday the trough will skirt to our north and temporarily dry us out. The good news is that the high will rebound quickly and continue to push sub-tropical moisture into our area for the foreseeable future!

Satellite this morning: The moisture plume is outlined in green. The tough currently over NV will move northeast and push our moisture plume to the east. We’ll have another round of “fun” today and then briefly dry out tomorrow.

*Radar this morning: Scattered light showers are falling this morning under that moisture plume. Showers and thunderstorms will become more widespread through the day as the atmosphere warms.*

My forecast…

*** The forecast periods are from 8am to 8am. ***

NWS 72-hour precip shows 1” of rain in town and up to 2” in our mountains. Much of this will fall today. We get a break tomorrow and then scattered afternoon showers and thunderstorms will return Tuesday.

*Euro ensemble precip through 3 Jul at 6pm – The map shows Pagosa getting 4.06” rain!*

WEATHER GEEK ALERT!

During summer our two primary forecast questions are: 1. Do we have moisture? 2. Is the atmosphere unstable? The products below help us answer those two questions.

Euro ensemble precipitable water - “Precipitable water is the depth of water in a column of the atmosphere, if all the water in that column were precipitated as rain.” This chart is read left to right with the most current time on the left. Times are in zulu. The top shows precipitable water values for 50 runs of the Euro model. The more purple the better! The bottom graph shows the mean of the 50 data runs. We want to see those above 0.7” - where I added the red line. Today we’re above the red line and then tomorrow it drops well below. Moisture starts moving back in Tuesday afternoon and tries to stay above the red line the rest of the period. — **Euro ensemble precipitable water** – “Precipitable water is the depth of water in a column of the atmosphere, if all the water in that column were precipitated as rain.”

*This chart is read left to right with the most current time on the left. Times are in zulu.*

The top shows precipitable water values for 50 runs of the Euro model. The more purple the better! The bottom graph shows the mean of the 50 data runs. We want to see those above 0.7” – where I added the red line. Today we’re above the red line and then tomorrow it drops well below. Moisture starts moving back in Tuesday afternoon and tries to stay above the red line the rest of the period.

Euro ensemble cape – “CAPE or Convective Available Potential Energy is the amount of fuel available to a developing thunderstorm. More specifically, it describes the instabilily of the atmosphere and provides an approximation of updraft strength within a thunderstorm.” Cape is just one way to measure instability but it’s a good tool for us. This chart is read left to right with the most current time on the left. Times are in zulu. The top chart shows cape values for 50 runs of the Euro model. The more blue, the better! The bottom graph shows the mean of the 50 data runs. We want these values to be above 200. So it’s unstable today, and then more stable tomorrow. It starts getting more unstable again Tuesday but is still below our 200 threshold. Thursday is plenty unstable at 300 and then it mostly stays above 200 the rest of the period. — **Euro ensemble cape** – “CAPE or Convective Available Potential Energy is the amount of fuel available to a developing thunderstorm. More specifically, it describes the instabilily of the atmosphere and provides an approximation of updraft strength within a thunderstorm.” Cape is just one way to measure instability but it’s a good tool for us.

*This chart is read left to right with the most current time on the left. Times are in zulu.*

The top chart shows cape values for 50 runs of the Euro model. The more blue, the better! The bottom graph shows the mean of the 50 data runs. We want these values to be above 200. So it’s unstable today, and then more stable tomorrow. It starts getting more unstable again Tuesday but is still below our 200 threshold. Thursday is plenty unstable at 300 and then it mostly stays above 200 the rest of the period.

These two products together indicate that for most of the next 14 days we have enough moisture (PWAT) and enough instability (Cape) for showers and thunderstorms nearly every day. This indicates a typical monsoon pattern – exactly what we want to see!

Pagosa Springs historical data

Average High	Record High / Year	Average Low	Record Low / Year
80	93 / 1954	37	22 / 1908

***A HUGE thanks to the Springs Resort for sponsoring our first monsoon surge and helping it rain!***

Call 877-841-0247 for our “dial up and text” forecast.

My next post will be tomorrow morning and I’ll include precip totals for the last three days.

– Shawn

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Shawn Pro

I’ve been a “weather geek” since I was young child. I joined the military out of high school and was lucky to get my dream job in weather. I have 20 years of military weather experience which includes forecasting the weather all over the world. Highlights were six years in Alaska and making life and death weather decisions during deployments. I love mountains, I love snow, and I love summertime thunderstorms. I spend a bunch of time playing outdoors and found my paradise in Pagosa Springs. I do Pagosa Weather as a community service. Hopefully you find us helpful!

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2 Responses

Jeff Witten says:

June 19, 2022 at 10:33 am

That’s great news! Keep washing the cars daily!!

Reply
1. Shawn Pro says:
  
  June 19, 2022 at 10:36 am
  
  YES! And keep up those rain dances!
  
  Reply

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