Hey, thanks for joining us here on 90s
plus some 90s meteorologist Chris Pionci.
All right, here's the question that it
seems like that a lot of you have been
asking me and all our meteorologists
here at 9 News for the last few weeks.
Does all this wet weather that we've
had throughout the course of the spring
and into the early part of the summer,
does that mean we're going to have
a wet summer and perhaps even beyond
that into the fall, the quick answer?
Not necessarily.
I'll explain all this here in just a second,
but first of all,
let's take a look back at what
we've seen so far this spring here
in Denver along the Front Range.
These totals are truly close to
astronomical for us here in Denver.
This is our wettest start officially
to a calendar year in Denver.
Since 1983.
So it has been a long time since we've seen
this much water in this short of a time span.
And for us here along the Front Range,
we are close to that double what we
typically get since January the 1st.
For what it's worth when we're
talking about precipitation,
for those of you who might not know,
that is rain and melted snow equivalent.
So you take the snow and the hail,
the sleet that we get and he melted
down to the rainfall equivalent.
That total number is what you're seeing
on the left hand side of your screen,
11.66 inches.
And that is close to 6 inches
above our yeartodate average.
And it's not just Denver here, folks.
Denver not just some one city outlier.
The entire Front Range swimming
in the amount of precipitation
we've had since January.
The first look at Colorado Springs
15.35 inches worth of rain melted stone
equivalent since the start of the year.
Folks for Colorado Springs second wettest
start to a calendar year on record there.
Denver the 11th.
Wettest Fort Collins 14th.
Wettest start to a calendar year.
Boulder tied to the 15th.
What is start to calendar year on record?
All right.
So at this point you got the idea.
We've had a lot of water so far this spring,
but does that mean we are going
to have a wet summer as well?
So here's the overall summer
weather outlook for one,
it is pretty clearly trending
warmer than average and I'll explain
why in just a second.
It is certainly at this point appears
to be leaning drier than average
and in particular in the western
and southern parts of the state,
as always, we're talking about these.
The three month outlooks,
these overall outlooks,
take them with a grain of salt because
predicting these sorts of trends,
especially for us here in Colorado
for a number of different reasons.
It is especially difficult and
full transparency here folks,
I'm going to be honest about it.
We often get these sorts of outlooks wrong.
So climate,
three month outlooks and these
sorts of forecasts are
very much a young thing that
these are in their infancy.
We've been doing this for maybe 1020 years.
And there's only kind of general
trends we can lean off of.
So take it with a grain of salt.
And I'm just being honest
about that because again,
a lot sometimes we often get these.
So I don't know, it's,
it's just something to take with
a small little grain of salt for
a number of different reasons.
All right.
But with that said,
don't want to diminish it too much here.
Here's the overall precipitation outlook.
And right now it appears that southern
and western Colorado would be leaning in
the drier than average side of things.
While maybe the far northeastern
sliver of Colorado above average
and also in terms of temperatures,
pretty much the entire state at
this point appears to be leaning
above average in terms of the
overall summer temperature outlook.
And the reason why It all relates
to one thing.
When we get to this time of year,
the way we get a rain and we
get any sort of precipitation,
it varies and it changes to
something called the monsoon.
You've probably heard about
the monsoon a million times.
And how exactly does it work?
Well, for one thing,
you get an area,
high pressure that's anchored over
the Southeast United States that
typically draws up a lot of hot and
humid air out of the Gulf of Mexico.
It pumps it up in a place
like Chicago and the Midwest,
and that's why it's so humid
that part of the state now,
that part of the country.
Now that said,
that same area,
high pressure tends to also bring
us some moisture out of the Gulf of
Mexico thanks to winds going around in area,
high pressure in a clockwise direction.
Long story short,
all you need to know.
Is for us here in Colorado area
high pressure over the southeast.
That means more moisture out of the
Gulf and an area high pressure also
develops over northern parts of
Mexico typically and that often draws
up moisture out of the Pacific as well.
So what it tends to mean is more storms,
more afternoon storms come mid to late July
and especially in August and early September.
That's kind of the heart of monsoon season,
late July,
August and September.
That is the heart of the
so-called monsoon season.
We get a lot of this Gulf of Mexico
and Pacific moisture and that tends
to move its way into our region.
Now for us here in Colorado at this point,
that lack of monsoon because what we're
looking at here and here's once again
that overall summer weather outlook,
when we get an El Nino,
we tend to have a later onset of the monsoon.
So the monsoon tends to get
delayed by about a month or two.
And some of the shorter term computer
forecast models are also indicating that.
So that's why at this point it is
trending warmer and drier than average
for us here across the Southwest and the
further South and West you go in Colorado,
that trend tends to be a bit greater.
Now of course we start off the summer season
with a nearly perfect drought map here
across the state of Colorado and that's
thanks to all the spring moisture we've had.
But of course, those sorts of things can
change with the flip of a switch here, folks.
And when we're getting to this time of year,
we're transitioning from the summer,
I should say,
the spring areas of low pressure,
kind of more cooler weather events,
cooler rain and cooler snow events,
we transition from that
over to the summer monsoon.
And the way to think of it is 2 very
different mechanisms for producing
precipitation, for producing moisture.
And as a result of that,
because of that,
there's no real relation to summer
and early fall rain and thunderstorm
activity compared to what we
typically get from the spring months,
if that makes sense.
It's it's apples and oranges.
It's a very different way to get moisture.
And at this point it appears that we
are trending on the drier side for us
here into the upcoming summer season.
So worth noting,
I'm going to leave you with this,
those top line takeaways,
it is trending warmer than average.
Are leaning drier than average.
And take the salt with a grain of
salt because predicting sorts of
climate outlooks on a month by
month and a season by season basis,
and I mentioned this before,
that sort of forecasting is very
much in its infancy.
So just being transparent about it,
this is a new science and as a
result that starting to get an
idea for general trends,
but those general trends may not
necessarily translate sometimes and
sometimes these forecasts can be wrong.
That said.
Overall,
lean would be a warmer and drier
summer and early fall thanks to some of
those reasons that I just mentioned.
Hopefully this is a good idea
about what to expect,
but I think another key take
away I'll lead you with this,
I've been mentioning a lot of
the asterisks with this forecast.
One thing that is definitive,
one thing I can definitely tell you is
that the fact that we've had a really,
really wet spring,
but this basically has no impact on
the summer and fall season because the
different ways we get our moisture,
if that makes sense.
So again, the definitive.
It would be that the rain that
we've had so far this spring,
very little impact on what we get
through the summer and the early fall,
but the overall fall and I should
say summer and early fall outlook
would lean drier and warmer.
So hopefully that answers some
of your questions and thanks for
joining us here on 90s plus.