Reporting by Miles Blumhardt, Fort Collins Coloradoan
Historically has it really been that hot and dry in Colorado this year or does it just seem that way?
And how much can we count on the monsoon moisture and forming super El Niño to bail us out of our persistent drought?
Is climate change to blame for the monthslong hot, dry weather?
For answers to those questions and more, we talked with Russ Schumacher, state climatologist and professor in Colorado State University’s Department of Atmospheric Science.
Is this the worst drought in Colorado recorded weather history?
No, but time will tell.
“2002 stands out as being probably the worst statewide drought in recent times,” Schumacher told the Coloradoan. “In terms of intensity of drought, this ranks right up there for the worst ones we have had across Colorado. It’s too early to rank it exactly with some historical ones because we don’t know how much longer it will last.”
Schumacher pointed out other significant droughts occurring in 2012 and during the 1930s Dust Bowl years.
Schumacher said many rivers, mostly on the Western Slope, will see their lowest flow on record this year. That is not the case with the Poudre River, which saw lower flows in 2012, another significant drought and year of the High Park Fire in Larimer County.
He said 2020, the year of the state’s two largest recorded wildfires — Cameron Peak and East Troublesome — saw decent mountain snowpack but the summer and fall turned exceptionally hot and dry.
How does the latest Colorado drought monitor map compare to other significant droughts?
The Colorado drought map released Aug. 13 shows 99% of the state is some designation of drought status, a percentage that has stayed steady the past three months.
What’s more troubling is nearly half the state is in extreme (D3) or exceptional (D4) drought, the two highest drought categories, and has been the last three months. Making matters worse is the worst drought conditions, mainly due to historically low snowpack, are right where we, and millions of others, can least afford to have drought.
“Having the worst drought conditions at the headwaters of the Colorado and Arkansas rivers is not where you want those conditions,” Schumacher said. “It affects millions and millions of people downstream. The fact that it was such a bad snow year literally has a ripple effect downstream for long distances.”
Schumacher said the U.S. drought monitor map started around 2000 and comparing the map in 2002 to 2026 isn’t apples to apples.
“There is much more detail in the map now then there was in 2002, so that makes it a little hard to compare the drought monitor from the two time periods,” Schumacher said.
He said the August 2002 drought map showed the entire state in extreme drought with pockets of exceptional in the southwest and southeast areas of the state. In 2012 and 2020, more of the state was categorized as extreme than in 2026.
“Some of that information is legitimate and in some aspects makes the drought worse in those years than now,” Schumacher said.
We keep hearing about the monsoon moisture and super El Niño, so are those really going to get us out of the drought?
Heavy monsoon moisture in July caused areas of flash flooding on the Western Slope but has been hit or miss elsewhere.
Schumacher said when really strong El Niños have formed like this year, which are rare, the Northern Front Range has seen particularly wet falls. El Niño winters have produced some above-average snowpack years, but Schumacher said the correlation between big snowpack years in the mountains and El Niño years is not as clear.
“El Niño tilts toward a wet fall and maybe we get one of of those big fall or spring upslope snows, but statistically there is not as much of a relation between El Niño and higher snowpack,” Schumacher said. “To really make a dent in the drought, we will broadly need a big snowpack. It’s promising and points us in a good direction but there are no guarantees.”
Currently, El Niño conditions exist and will strengthen through the end of the year, with a more than 90% chance of a “very strong” El Niño October through December, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Climate Prediction Center posted Aug. 13 on its website.
Are the current drought and extremely warm temperatures caused by climate change?
Like El Niño tilts in favor of more rain and snow in Colorado, climate change also tilts in favor of hotter weather.
The Colorado Climate Center reported the 2026 water year, which runs Oct. 1 through Sept. 30, has been the warmest on record by a large margin. The statewide average temperature through July was 6.2 degrees higher than the 20th century average and 4.6 degrees above the 1991-2020 average. It also has been the sixth driest water year.
This July was the second hottest month in 132 years of records, only behind July of 2003.
“Climate change makes that more likely, but we had La Niña and weather patterns that were not in our favor,” Schumacher said. “As the climate warms, the odds of having warmer extremes are more likely and add that to a year where you have bad precipitation makes the drought that much worse.”
This article originally appeared on Fort Collins Coloradoan.
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