After this Weekend, We have a Few Visitors Arriving!

Low Level Water Vapor Satellite Image; June 28th 5:00pm

Saturday – 28 Jun 2025 – 6:00pm

The past…

At Stevens Field we’ve had typical early summer weather, warm, dry, gusty winds…

Thursday, Hi Tmp 81, Lo 41, Pk Wind G35, Min RH 10%, Dew Point 18.

Friday, Hi Tmp 83, Lo 45, Pk Wind G26, Min RH 8%, Dew Point 12.

Saturday (today), Hi Tmp 84, Lo 45, Pk Wind G28, Min RH 8%, Dew Point 18.

Precipitation summary… There was no precip reported in the last 72 hours.

These warm, dry conditions have been slowly drying out everything in the woods. Starting July 1st, 2025, the San Juan National Forest Zone 1 will go into Stage I Fire Restrictions. For more information and maps, refer to the San Juan National Forest website alert page.

Forecast discussion…

Main monsoon plume is to our east wrapping around subtropical ridge over southern plains. We still have very dry air to our southwest. However, a weak low is forming and will move east as our first visitor starting Tuesday. Later in the week, we could see residual moisture from a depression that is forming now and could develop into Tropical Storm Flossie!

There are only a few showers in Conejos/Mineral/Rio Grande counties moving west to east… away from us. Weak moisture is wrapping around ridge to our east. 28 Jun 25 at 3:00pm

Forecast highlights…

*** Rest of the weekend & Monday will be sunny and dry with showers over mountains. ***

*** The monsoon will kick into the gear starting Tuesday! ***

Rest of the weekend into Monday… There will be lots of sun and seasonal temps with just scattered afternoon clouds. We’ll see isolated showers over the mountains. They’ll be moving west to east. We’ll see an uptick in those showers on Monday and they’ll be moving northwest to southeast AND a few of those showers will be thunderstorms.

Temps… High temp will be in mid 80s to upper 80s. Low will be low 40s to upper 40s.

Winds… Afternoon gusts will be 15-25mph. As long as this dry air is in place, we’ll be gusty in the afternoon. Moisture will be here on Tuesday!

Tuesday through Friday… We’ll wake up to bright sun and then clouds will start to build over the mountains in the late mornings and spread throughout the rest of county in the afternoon.  Scattered showers and thunderstorms are possible each afternoon and into the evening.  As Shawn says, we are usually treated to a pretty sunset, and sometimes a brilliant rainbow. 

A note about monsoon storms… Rain is not guaranteed for you every day.  Convective showers are always spotty and usually short-lived. Subtropical monsoon moisture can result in very heavy downpours that only last 15-30 minutes.

The subtropical ridge is at a good height – note the warm temps they have been having out east. However, it still is a little too far to the east for ideal monsoon storms. Dew points will be near 50 through this time. We really want them over 50. The polar front jet is still too far south. However, the first baroclinic low that generates and moves into our area the beginning of the week will enhance our southwest flow and advection of the moisture. Tuesday should be a good day!

The models diverge in agreement after Tuesday. The GFS has the depression in the Baja area deepening into Tropical Storm Flossie and moving north. This will bring a LOT more moisture into our area as opposed to the Euro solution. See the long range precip charts below… We’ll be closely monitoring this situation. If the GFS solution is correct, Thursday could be a very wet day with nocturnal thunderstorms!

We’ll have a separate Friday, July 4th forecast out in the next few days.

Temps… Highs will be in the mid-70s to lo-80s and lows will be in the low 40s to low 50s.

Winds… Afternoon gusts will mostly be around 15mph, but isolated 30-40mph gusts are possible near showers and thunderstorms.

All models are indicating, we will dry out next weekend (July 5th/6th) before the monsoon showers kick back in on Monday the 7th.

The 8-14 day period… After the 7th, the monsoon will stick with us, so we’ll see scattered showers and thunderstorms most afternoons.

On the top, Euro ensemble precip to 13 Jul at 6am shows .83” in the Pagosa area. On the bottom, GFS ensemble precip shows 1.83”. Wow! The Euro loses a whole inch! The difference is due to what the two models are doing with Flossie.

This is all spotty convective precip so amounts will vary considerably. A single slow-moving cell can drop 1” of rain in a short period over a small area. We’re playing the rain lottery!

My next post will be on Monday.

– Arleen