GRAND JUNCTION, Colo. (KKCO) - We spoke with the Colorado Climate Center about what conditions could be like for the winter season in Western Colorado.
We're leaning toward a winter free of La Niña or El Niño. If there is a chance we get one, we could have a La Niña. La Niña happens when the sea surface temperatures over the eastern and central Pacific Ocean near the equator is cooler than normal while a winter free of La Niña or El Niño means sea surface temperatures are near normal. What happens there influences the global weather pattern and can affect our weather locally. Peter Goble, Assistant State Climatologist with the Colorado Climate Center at Colorado State University, said, "The reason that that matters is it has semi predictable kind of ripple effects on the weather patterns that we see in the atmosphere and what our jet stream does, which is the current of air that basically the storms that we see in winter and spring ride on."
Long-range data is leaning toward a warmer winter, but it's not yet known if precipitation will be more active than usual. The southwest part of the state is leaning toward drier than normal. This would have an impact on the snowpack and water supply. "Anytime you have multiple years of drought in a row, we start to worry about our water supply more. That would mean the next year would have less of that water supply going into your lakes, streams, and reservoirs and more of it going into just kind of recharging soil moisture and groundwater conditions," said Goble.
Goble says similar setups in the past led to drier than usual conditions in the San Juans in the 2013 to 2014 winter as well as the 2017 to 2018 winter. But the 2013 to 2014 winter was a better year for snow overall in Western Colorado while the opposite case happened in the 2017 to 2018 winter.
Even though the data favors a warmer and drier winter in much of Western Colorado, there is still some uncertainty. There's some possibility that the winter may not play out as current forecasts suggest. Confidence will increase as we get closer to winter.