One soaking rainstorm, zero snowflakes and Boulder’s 17th straight warmer-than-normal month. Our October 2026 Climate Review breaks it all down, plus a look at how 2026 is well on-track to be the warmest year in Colorado history.
Category: Monsoon (Page 1 of 20)
After months of worsening drought, southwest Colorado has flipped the script in dramatic fashion this fall. From Pagosa Springs to Durango to the entire San Juans, some locations have picked up an astonishing 15 to 20 inches of precipitation in just 60 days, erasing extreme drought conditions but ultimately triggering one of the region’s most significant flood events on record. What turned a parched landscape into a flood disaster in only eight weeks? We dive into the remarkable sequence of tropical moisture surges, the key role of a strengthening record El Niño, and why the same pattern that drenched southwest Colorado left Boulder and Denver largely high and dry.
September 2026 will be remembered as the month that put an exclamation point on an extraordinary water year of heat and dryness in Boulder, with less than 20% of normal precipitation falling during the month and temperatures more than five degrees above average. Despite a strong late-season monsoon, moisture largely avoided the Front Range, and especially Boulder County, culminating with a great modeling collapse of a significant rain event in the final days of the month tied to the remnants of Hurricane Polo.
Here’s a graphical look at how September 2026 unfolded across Boulder, Denver, and the Front Range — and how it compared to climatology.
Boulder just endured its driest water year on record, closing out twelve months with only 10.65 inches of precipitation — barely half of normal and nearly at desert-level. From a failed snow season to record spring warmth and a monsoon that largely bypassed the city, every season conspired to keep Boulder locked in a warm‑and‑dry feedback loop. Reservoirs and upstream snow storage will cushion the blow for now, but the bigger question looms: what happens if we start stringing years like this together?
A slow‑moving, high‑stakes storm has been creeping toward Colorado all week — a rare mash‑up of an autumn upper‑low and the juicy tropical remnants of Hurricane Polo — and for a moment, it looked like Boulder and Denver might finally score a true soaking. But as the atmosphere loves to do, the script flipped late. Today’s update breaks down how this once‑promising setup unraveled over the last couple days, why southern Colorado is now squarely in the bullseye, and what scraps of moisture the Front Range can still squeeze out as the system passes by to our south.
A slow‑building, tropical‑charged system is about to make its move on Colorado — and the setup behind it is far more complex than your typical late‑September storm. As Hurricane Polo’s remnants collide with a impressive Pacific upper‑low, the stage is set for a rare, moisture‑laden system that could deliver anything from a major rain event to a near‑miss for Boulder and Denver. We break down why the models are struggling, what the key track differences mean for your neighborhood, and where flooding and high‑elevation snow may become real concerns as the storm unfolds.
UPDATED Tuesday Sep 26 5:00PM: Updated rainfall forecast map and some wording to account for growing confidence the bulk of the storm will miss the Denver Metro area.
A complicated weather pattern is taking shape across Colorado this week, with a deep low pressure system, a surge of tropical moisture, and the remnants of Hurricane Polo all getting tangled up together. For Boulder, Denver and the Front Range, that combination creates some unusually large forecast uncertainties — particularly when it comes to how much rain falls and just how chilly things get by midweek. Meanwhile, southern Colorado is in store for a much bigger soaking, with some impressive rainfall totals showing up in the guidance alongside high peak snowfall. We break down what we know now, what remains uncertain, and when we can finally expect this week’s definitively gloomy weather to break and sunshine to return.
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