Forecasters predicted a strong monsoon season this summer. What really happened?

FORT COLLINS, Colo. — In June, forecasters with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration confirmed that El Niño conditions had formed in the Pacific Ocean. They predicted a strong El Niño episode over the coming year. 

El Niño — a global weather phenomenon caused by warming water in the Pacific Ocean — can cause weather shifts around the globe, affecting agriculture, ecosystems and economies.

I wanted to know what El Niño could mean for the state’s horrific drought conditions. Earlier this summer I spoke with Brad Udall, senior water and climate research scientist at the Colorado Water Center, to understand. The short answer: because of Colorado’s geographic position, there’s not a strong correlation between precipitation and past El Niño years. 

But in my conversation with Udall, I learned that forecasters were predicting a stronger monsoon season in Colorado. 

The North American Monsoon — named for the rain event common in India, in which high temperatures turn moisture-laden air from nearby oceans into downpours — provides Colorado’s largest source of summertime precipitation. 

With summer in the rearview, I was curious to hear what actually happened this summer. I spoke with Colorado’s state climatologist Russ Schumacher to find out.  

This conversation has been edited for length and clarity. 

Rocky Mountain PBS: It’s been a weird year for Colorado weather. What stands out most to you? 

Russ Schumacher: [Oct. 1] is the start of the new water year, so it's a good time to reflect back on what happened. Across Colorado, the water year started with a flood that happened down in southwest Colorado, and it's ending with floods.

And then in between that was one of the worst droughts that we've ever had with record-low snowpack, low stream flow and reservoirs getting lower.

The other big story of this water year has been the warmth. It's going to be the warmest water year on record for Colorado by a pretty large margin.

RMPBS: Do those kinds of extreme fluctuations make your job more exciting?

RS: Well, yeah, I guess it's more exciting. But it's harder for the people who rely on that water. It would be much better to have more average precipitation spread throughout the year rather than getting it all in some big bursts and with long, dry stretches in between.

RMPBS: At the start of the summer, I heard lots of talk about a stronger than average monsoon season. What actually happened this summer? 

RS: It was hit and miss, as it often is during the core part of the monsoon season. 

There's places in southwestern Colorado, like around Pagosa Springs north of Durango, where they've had 8 or 9 inches of rain in September. Some spots in southeastern Colorado have had 5 or 6 inches of rain in September, so it's been quite wet in those areas. 

But on the other hand, the Northern Front Range, which is where I am, continues to be pretty dry. 

RMPBS: What worries you most about Colorado’s water picture at this point? What do you feel like is being left out of the conversation around water? 

RS: The thing here in Colorado is most of our water comes from snow in the mountains in the winter and in the spring. And so certainly it's great that it's raining now and we're getting precipitation at this point, but that doesn't really go back and fix the limited water supply that we had earlier in the year. The reservoirs are still really low.

I think we all just need to wait and see what happens with this upcoming snowpack season, because that's where that's where the majority of the water comes from. 

RMPBS: In April of this year, you said that it was “too early to say” how a super El Niño could impact precipitation in the state this winter. Is it still too early to say? 

RS: For the winter, I think it’s still a little too early to say. The connections between El Niño and our mountain snowpack in the winter are just not very strong. The southwestern U.S., Texas, Gulf Coast, Florida, those places tend to be wet during El Niño. The northern tier of states tend to be warmer and drier than average. Here in Colorado, we sit right in the middle. And so it can kind of go either way. 

And then there's also the fact that this may end up being the strongest El Niño on record, and so it's not certain how much we should rely on those past relationships between previous El Niño events and what we've seen. 

People are excited and hopeful after how brutal last winter was in terms of snow in the mountains, and I think there's reason for cautious optimism that we'll have a decent winter, but it's still a little too early to say.

I wouldn't bank on a blockbuster winter, but it's very likely to be better than last year because last year was so bad.