Drought conditions improve across Colorado after record rainfall
There's some encouraging news this week when it comes to drought conditions across Colorado. The biggest improvement came in the extreme drought category, which dropped by about 13 percent statewide — a significant shift in just one week.
The most dramatic change occurred in southern Colorado, where record rainfall helped push many areas all the way to drought-free status. Meanwhile, the eastern plains continue to hold steady with mostly drought-free conditions — great news for farmers and ranchers as we move deeper into the fall season.
However, some pockets of moderate drought remain in the Denver metro area, particularly across Jefferson, Douglas, and Arapahoe counties.
According to Allie Mazurek, a climatologist with Colorado State University, it's highly unusual to see this much rain in October.
"It's very uncommon to see rainfall totals like this in October," Mazurek said. "We sometimes can see values like this in the summertime when we get moisture from the North American Monsoon."
Mazurek noted that it's also unusual to see drought conditions disappear so quickly, going from drought to drought-free in just one week.
While the rain has brought much-needed relief, Mazurek cautioned that prolonged drought can actually increase flood risk when heavy rain finally hits.
"Drought can exacerbate those flood conditions and that flood risk because those drier, thirstier soils can often have a hard time absorbing that rain — especially when it comes all at once," she explained.
Although Mazurek said it's not clear whether this specific event was directly tied to climate change, she emphasized that the trend toward more extreme weather is well-documented.
"We do know that with climate change in general, we expect our extremes to become more extreme," she said. "That means heavier rain events becoming more intense, as well as droughts becoming more severe."
As we look toward the rest of the fall and into winter, Mazurek said conditions appear to be trending drier.
"We have shifted into La Niña conditions, and historically, when La Niña is present in the fall, it's often correlated with drier weather across Colorado," she explained.
Despite the recent improvement, Mazurek warned that Colorado isn't out of the woods just yet.
"There are still many areas in western Colorado experiencing drought conditions," she said. "While this precipitation was a welcome relief in the short term, our most important source of water is our snowpack. We really need that to build through the winter months in order to sustain these drought-free conditions."
