The torrential rain last weekend helped further erode Colorado's drought
Drought in Colorado has improved for the sixth consecutive week. The torrential rain that fell over parts of the Front Range last weekend has undeniably helped.
The weekly drought monitor across the country is released each Thursday morning. The data this week showed the percentage of Colorado experiencing at least moderate drought dropped 4% from a week ago. Currently 58% of the state has at least moderate drought and 27% of the state has at least severe drought. Just 6% of Colorado has one of the worse two drought categories which are extreme and exceptional drought. Those categories cover only the far northeast corner of the state including Julesburg and Holyoke along with a sliver of southwest Colorado near Cortez.
Denver and most of the Front Range received at least 0.25" of rain last week and some areas on the northeast side of the Denver metro area received much more. Areas along the "Central 70" project between I-25 and I-225 measured 1-2 inches of rain that fell in less than an hour. That caused significant flooding and stranded vehicles on I-70 last Sunday night.
All that rain also helped eliminate severe drought for most of Denver but it persists for the eastern suburbs including Aurora, Commerce City, Parker and everywhere else highlighted orange on the map below. A week ago the orange area covered nearly all of the Denver metro area.
With dry weather expected all of this week in most areas, drought improvement may stall next week but there are strong signals from weather models that wet weather will return to Colorado by Monday. The current precipitation forecast for Monday and Tuesday shows up to 1 inch of rain in the foothills and lower amounts in the Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins areas.
Regardless how much rain falls, it appears likely most areas will get at one point or another early next week.
