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August 2019 Climate Summary for Eastern Utah and Western Colorado
August 2019 kicked off with a surge of monsoonal moisture advecting into eastern Utah and western Colorado which produced scattered to numerous showers and thunderstorms during the first few days. Some storms resulted in locally heavy rain and debris flows, including over the Lake Christine Fire burn scar on August 4th. However, the atmosphere dried out shortly thereafter which saw critical fire weather conditions return to much of the region with above normal temperatures, gusty winds and low humidities. This benign weather pattern continued for much of the rest of the month, though there were diurnally driven orographic showers and thunderstorms during many of the afternoons.
While we saw some heavy rain producers in August, overall the month ended up being drier than normal based on the 10 automated stations found at airports across eastern Utah and western Colorado, with all 10 of those stations ending August with below normal precipitation. The most precipitation fell at the Durango-La Plata County Airport where 1.24 inches fell...0.94 inches below normal for August. The Canyonlands Field Airport in Moab, Utah saw the least amount of precipitation with only 0.02 inches...0.82 inches below normal. August was warmer than normal for most of the region with mean temperatures ranging anywhere from 1 to 4 degrees above normal. The warmest August temperature of 101 degrees occurred at the Canyonlands Field Airport in Moab, Utah on the 6th, 16th and 21st. The coldest temperature of 33 degrees F occurred at the Craig-Moffat Airport on August 28th.
Grand Junction had an average monthly temperature of 78.9 degrees which was 3.4 degrees above normal. The highest temperature was 100 degrees on August 6th and the lowest was 56 degrees on the 28th. 0.14 inches of precipitation fell throughout the month which was 0.81 inches below normal. 0.0 inches of snow fell which was normal.
Taking a quick look ahead to September, the official forecast from the Climate Prediction Center (https://www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov/products/predictions/long_range/lead14/) shows odds of warmer than normal temperatures across eastern Utah and western Colorado with above normal precipitation favored as well.
For more climate information from other sites, please visit our climate page on our website at http://w2.weather.gov/climate/index.php?wfo=gjt (select the NOWDATA tab for even more sites). You can also follow us on Facebook (@NWSGrandJunction) or Twitter (@NWSGJT).
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