We had a great visit with the Grand Junction NWS! Mark, sitting down, is explaining an amazing radar program. Standing behind Mark, is our Mark, then Arleen, and Tom. They were great hosts, and we learned a lot! – Pic taken 4/6/2023
Big Thank You Waves to Individual Donors & Our Sponsors; News on Community Outreach; Calendar of events, Contest Updates…
Personal Donations
Special waves of thanks to our wonderful donors in the last few months: Margaret Wempe, H K Strahlendorf, Valerie Groves, Susan Buchne, Barbara Pugh, and Jean Eilek!
What your generous donation goes towards…
Your donations help us take care of the costs of the website manager, Fluid Elements, the website, weather subscriptions, and other business expenses. Most importantly your donations ensure that we will be able to provide this free service for everyone for years to come. Remember, each donor will receive a Pagosa Weather Snow Depth Measurer (yardstick).
Follow this link to make a donations: How to Donate: You can donate by PayPal, Square, or by check. Thank you so much for our generosity!
You can pick up your Pagosa Weather Snow Depth Measurer (yardstick) at San Juan Mercantile.
San Juan Mercantile is a fun store with Antiques, Collectibles, Jewelry, Knives, Candles, Housewares, Fine Linens, Local Honey, Souvenirs, and Locally made items. It is at 524 San Juan Street, next to the Barber Shop, across the street from Plaza Liquor. Thank you to Cindy and her team for being our store front!
Mark, Shawn and I have been truly touched by the support our followers have shown for us!
Scroll down to see NEWS on Presentations, Calendar and Contest Updates.
Sponsors
We LOVE our Sponsors! They just amaze us with their support!
Pagosa Mountain Sports committed to another six months as a Snowball level sponsor! Huge thanks to Amanda, Coquette, Janine, Jake and the rest of the team at Pagosa Mountain Sports. Remember now is the time to get your bikes tuned up! They have a downtown and an uptown location.
Click on the sponsor’s logo to follow to their website.
Blizzard Level Sponsor
Snowman Level Sponsors
Snowball Level Sponsors
Storm Sponsor
National Weather Service in Grand Junction
The three of us, Arleen, Shawn, and Mark, loaded up and went to visit the National Weather Service (NWS) Office in Grand Junction in April. The visit helped us, the Pagosa Weather (PW) team, understand the challenges the NWS team faces with an area of responsibility that includes eastern Utah, Western Colorado, the I-70 corridor and terminal aerodrome forecasts for numerous mountain airports.
The NWS team conveyed how grateful they are to us in communicating local weather conditions to them. In addition, based on a request from us, they made a few changes that will allow us to access data that will help us better forecast and define snow versus rain levels.
We are very thankful to the collaborative relationship we have with NWS.
Seasonal Fire Weather Training for San Juan National Forest Pagosa
Shawn and I briefed the San Juan National Forest Pagosa fire crews on fire weather training. I went over the formation of synoptic weather patterns that set up to give us an early fire season as compared to the northern Rockies that has a fire season later in the year.
I went over weather phenomena that impact the fire conditions such as inversions, winds, and thunderstorms. I briefed the tools that they can use for monitoring conditions such as radar and satellite. I explained the formulas for figuring the Hot, Dry Windy Index and Vapor Pressure Deficit to determine the fire potential. Finally, I reviewed the Red Flag program.
Shawn and I really appreciate the important, difficult work the fire crews perform. We hope they found the information we shared helpful in their mission and we look forward to training more crews in the future.
Weather Workshop: Every Drop Counts!
We are very grateful to Robin Young of the The Archuleta County Colorado State University Extension office who put together an evening with climate and weather experts. Special guest was Peter Goble, who is the Colorado Climate Center Climatologist, Water Availability Specialist and Colorado CoCoRaHS Coordinator. I was honored to be the second speaker. Shawn Prochazka was also there to answer any questions.
Peter looked at the big picture; our Colorado Climatology, what weather is versus climate, climate change in Colorado, current conditions and a current drought update. I looked at our micro climate picture in Archuleta County and Pagosa Springs and discussed how the El Nino Southern Oscillation has impacted our area. I also did a focused study on how during the last two La Nina winters one was average and one was above average and how that was possible when a La Nina winter normally produces less than average snow.
Finally, I briefly discussed our upcoming monsoon season. I’ll have an actual forecast out in the middle of May. I need to wait for the official hurricane forecast and other indicators that are not available yet.
Both Peter and Arleen talked about the CoCoRaHS program and how important it is to hydrologists. A number of folks at the meeting had an interest in the program. Peter signed up four local weather enthusiasts and gave each of them an official CoCoRaHS gauge. We look forward to their reports!
We are thankful to our Pagosa Weather followers who came out and joined us for a lively weather discussion.
Pagosa Weather Calendar
May 18th, Thursday, 6:00 – 7:15pm: Ruby Sisson Library; Monsoon Outlook, Open to Public
May 31st, Wednesday, 6:30-8:00pm: Outdoor Club Meeting; Monsoon Outlook – Open to Public: Note the change to the date
July 4th, Tuesday, 10:00am: 4th of July Parade; Hand out Cloud Stress Clouds & candy
September 16-17th, Saturday & Sunday: Colorfest; Will provide weather aviation support for the mass balloon ascensions
September 23, Saturday, Time TBD: Mountain Chili Cha Cha; Pagosa Weather Meet & Greet booth
Early December: Festival of Trees; Pagosa Weather tree adorned with snowmen and snowflakes.
Send email to pagosaweather.org if your organization would like to hear a weather presentation.
CoCoRaHS
Pagosa Weather is the Archuleta County “CoCoRaHS Coordinator” and “Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador”.
Archuleta County is well represented but we still have big data gaps. We really need a volunteer in Arboles, Dulce, west on Highway 160, Pagosa Junction, and the upper Blanco. Sign up by filling out this web page: https://www.cocorahs.org/application.aspx. Or send us a note and we can send you more detailed information.
Peter sign up four local weather enthusiasts and gave each of them an official CoCoRaHS gauge at our recent weather CSU Extension Office weather talk. One of them is on upper Mill Creek! We look forward to their reports!
The red circles are areas we could use a CoCoRaHS observer. Let us know if you can give us 5 to 10 minutes every morning to measure precip and snow. CoCoRaHS provides all the training you need.
Contest Updates
Special Thanks to our sponsor businesses that have stepped forward to sponsor our weather contests. They are a lot of fun!
Upcoming Contests
| 2023 Monsoon Rainfall | May 15, 2023 | The Springs Resort |
Closed Contest – Wolf Creek Total Seasonal Snowfall Contest!
Wolf Creek closed the season with 490 inches of snow! The winner of a $50 Gift Certificate to the Ski & Bow Rack with a guess of 488″ was Andrew Woods!!!
The four runner ups and winners of a Ski & Bow Rack hat were Randy Hays, Steve Voorhis, Janice Roedel, and Casey Fisher. Congratulations to all! Maybe we’ll hit 500″ next year!!!
Huge thanks to Brittany & Robert and the rest of the team at Ski & Bow Rack for the support of our weather contests and for being our Blizzard level sponsor!
Active Contest – When will Pagosa Airfield hit 75oF!
Forecast the date and the time that the Pagosa Airfield hits 75 degrees Fahrenheit this year. The person with the closest guess will win a $25 gift certificate for Pagosa Mountain Sports, one of our Snowball sponsors, a perfect partnership between weather & folks playing outside!
Huge thanks to Amanda, Coquette, Janine, Jake and the rest of the team at Pagosa Mountain Sports for sponsoring this contest and their support of Pagosa Weather.
Note: This contest is closed to any new guesses.
The Airfield hit 73oF the day before yesterday – so close! Now, we are in a bit of a cooling trend.
5/3/2023 Alexandra 1:32 PM
Musetta Wollenber 2:02 PM
Phil Slusher 2:22 PM
5/5/2023 Tabitha Hart 1:45 PM
Michelle Juneau 2:05 PM
Suzanne Huhta 3:00 PM
Lisa Wilson Seider 3:30 PM
Frank Snyder 4:00 PM
Kim Bristow 4:08 PM
Emma Pope 4:20 PM
5/7/2023 Nancy Reed Drape 2:00 PM
Julie Pederson 2:00 PM
5/8/2023 Irene Helmburg Mueller 2:34 PM
Lisa Vail 3:00 PM
Erin Tuatagaloa 3;17 PM
5/9/2023 Christian Pantin 2:00 PM
John Brogan 4:45 PM
5/10/2023 Belinda Hewitt 3:45 PM
5/11/2023 Victoria Coleman 4:11 PM
JoAnn Calfree 4:48 PM
5/12/2023 Mike Graan 1:13 PM
Terri Thelist 3:00 PM
Beth Wallis Terry 3:00 PM
5/14/2023 Misty Carruso 12:43 PM
Bruce Anderson 4:00 PM 5/15/2023
Liela Johnson 2:35 PM
Carolyn Schwulst 3:00 PM
Marie Hernandez 3:00 PM
Eddie Brogan 5:00 PM
5/16/2023 Debra Priest Wallen 3:00 PM
Tina Sowle 3:45 PM
5/17/2023 Dustin Mattingly 1:30 PM
Kristine Bixler 2:30 PM
Leo Milner 3:35 PM
5/18/2023 Simmie E. Rose 3:00 PM
5/19/2023 Lauren Hawksworth 2:00 PM
Sandra Meyn Thoma 3:00 PM
5/20/2023 Mike Dingman 2:00 PM
Carol A. Myerson-Schlif 3:00 PM
Lucinda Morris Tagliareni 3:00 PM
5/21/2023 Hollie Baldwin 2:00 PM
Katie Jo 2:21 PM
5/22/2023 Emily Green Martinez 2:00 PM
Monica Craig 2:15 PM
Josh Gieger 2:22 PM
Sarah Fisher 3:40 PM
5/23/2023 Amy Nutall 1:08 PM
5/27/2023 Renee Demianew 2:27 PM
5/28/2023 Cherese Bergman 2:00 PM
Eddie Brogan 3:46 PM
5/30/2023 Tim Crawford 1:45 PM
Kimberly Jean White 2:44 PM
Bradley Turney 4:00 PM
5/31/2023 Dawn Marie Gonzales 2:30 PM
6/2/2023 Starla Pribble 4:55 PM
6/3/2023 Susan Cronin (no time listed)
Bonnie J. Newman-Schif 1:30 PM
JoAnn Senzig 2:15 PM
Anne Danielson 3:15 PM
6/5/2023 Joni Martin Shirk 3:00 PM
6/10/2023 Casey Fisher 12:55 PM
6/19/2023 Susan Ivy Higley 3:03 PM
6/22/2023 Carol Ann Peterson 4:00 PM
6/29/2023 Donna Gaule Milner 3:00 PM
