Western Colorado Braces for Wetter, Hotter Monsoon Season

Vail saw above-average snowfall last summer. Aspen went dry. That’s the reality of Colorado’s weather, where "El Nino" doesn’t mean a guarantee of anything other than chaos.

But here’s the headline locals need to process: the state climatologist says this summer is shaping up to be wetter than normal. Specifically, the Western Slope is in the crosshairs for above-average rainfall.

Peter Goble, assistant state climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center, is calling it. “There’s definitely some reason to believe that this monsoon season might be an active one right now … especially for Western Colorado,” Goble said. He’s quick to add the standard disclaimer — forecasting is not a crystal ball — but the data points are shifting. The Climate Prediction Center’s outlook shows a high likelihood of rain from June through September, with the Western Slope and the Utah border seeing the strongest odds.

Let’s do the math on the atmospheric setup. We’re currently in neutral conditions, but the clock is ticking. Models favor El Nino conditions forming by next month and persisting through the end of the year. The center predicts an 82% chance that El Nino materializes between May and July. By winter, that jumps to a 96% chance of El Nino sticking around from December through February 2027.

Historically, El Nino brings wetter summers and falls to parts of Colorado, and drier winters to the Northern Rockies. But don’t assume this will mirror the last El Nino summer in 2023. That year was a study in contradictions. Vail and Breckenridge got buried in snow. Aspen got dusted off. Goble noted that the correlation between El Nino and specific local outcomes is statistically significant but not absolute. “That’s not necessarily the way it was every El Nino summer,” he said.

The twist? Temperatures. Forecasts also predict hotter-than-normal conditions. This isn’t just about rain; it’s about how that rain hits the ground. Hotter air holds more moisture. When it does fall, it falls harder. For folks living along the Roaring Fork or the Gunnison, that means flash floods aren’t just a possibility, they’re a probability. The infrastructure in many of these towns was built for a different climate, one where rain was steady and predictable. It wasn’t.

Goble points out that the link between El Nino and stronger summer precipitation isn’t as strong as the tie between El Nino and winter storms. But the monsoon season is getting a boost. “Like almost anything in the forecast, that’s not a certainty, but it looks more promising than a normal summer.”

Expect rain. Expect heat. And expect the kind of localized flooding that turns a five-minute drive into a twenty-minute crawl. The models are aligning. The question isn’t if it will rain. It’s whether your culvert can handle it.