As of 1 Jul, most of Archuleta County has “severe” drought conditions
Thursday – 3 Jul 2025 – 10:30am
June Summary…
The average high for Jun is 78 and the average low is 36. The record high of 101 occurred on 30 Jun 1934. The record low of 20 occurred on 2 Jun 1908. Jun precip averages 0.93″ and average snowfall is zero. Wolf Creek Pass averages 1.74″ of precip and 1.2″ snow.
At Stevens Field the highest temp was 88 on 15 Jun and the lowest temp was 37 on 23 Jun. There were 7 days with winds at or over 30mph. The strongest wind was 44mph on 6 Jun.
How did we do?
Drought and River levels…
The US drought map on the bottom shows that much of the western US is experiencing drought conditions.
The peak for the season was 1,080cfs on 14 May.
July Outlook…
The average high for Jul is 83 and the average low is 44. The record high of 99 occurred on 7 Jul 1989. The record low of 24 occurred on 5 Jul 1912. Jul precip averages 2.01″ and average snowfall is zero. Wolf Creek Pass averages 3.61″ of precip and zero snow.
The precip outlook on the right shows “equal chances” for average precip.
And what do we expect?
Arleen is the expert, and this is what she says…
July is one of our wettest months with an average of two inches of rain.
Currently the ridge is migrating from the east of us to the west of us. That is not good news. When the ridge is to our west we get northwest flow resulting in weak monsoon activity – “scraps”. In other bad news, the polar front jet is still too far south to allow the subtropical ridge to set up over the southern plains. Also not favorable for us, the heat dome during the 1st half of he month will be over the desert southwest instead of the southern plains.
All models agree that the 500MB ridge will wobble between the Four Corners and Lower Colorado River basin areas leaving us dry for much of the first half of July. The Euro shows only a scant 1/10″ while the GFS shows 1/2″ and the Canadians show 8/10″ of precip during that time. Go Canada! With that synoptic situation, however, the Euro is probably more correct.
In good news, all models are indicating a weakening ridge towards mid month with eastward movement and a weakening heat dome over the southwest. At the same time the polar front weakens and moves north.
The CPC indicates equal chances for average precip for the month. Both the Euro and the GFS indicate above average precip for July. My forecast is that we’ll finish the month with near average precip and above average temps. Let’s hope for a strong second half of July. Keep up your rain dances!
A HUGE thanks for your precip reports and pictures! Reports help verify our forecasts and make us better forecasters.
Another HUGE thanks to our donors and sponsors! You help cover the cost of this web page and our weather subscriptions, necessary to provide you accurate weather reports!
- Shawn
2 Responses
Daily posts please
Rose,
Thank you for your request. We are a nonprofit with only two forecasting volunteers. Shawn and I dedicate about 20 to 40 hours a week each to Pagosa Weather. We are volunteers and we do not receive any sort of salary – this is our community service using the weather forecasting skills we have. If we ever have another meteorologist that moves to the area and we were able to recruit him/her, we could do daily posts. For now, if there is something significant going on such as a winter weather storm, we post daily weather posts or even more frequently. Thank you for following us.
Arleen