Although cloudy skies are predicted to clear up over the weekend, meteorologists are predicting a wet and stormy summer for the Front Range.
National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Baker attributes a good deal of Colorado’s soggy spring to El Niño — a warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean waters that is known for wreaking weather havoc in the form of hurricanes, thunderstorms and rainfall.
“I’ve been watching these phenomena for most of my career, and this El Niño is just very unusual,” Baker said. “Very strong.”
The ocean waters are warming quickly and are more spread out than Baker has ever seen, with increased ocean temperatures as far north as Oregon and the gulf of Alaska.
He equated the effect this has had on Colorado and the western United States to hot water in a bathroom.
“If you put cold water in the tub, you don’t worry about your mirrors fogging up,” Baker said. “But if it’s warm water, the mirror fogs up along with the room, too. The atmosphere is responding in the same way.”
The warmth, Baker said, is being released as humidity that forms clouds and produces the thunderstorms that Colorado has seen this spring.
As for the rest of the summer, Baker expects Colorado will see more of the same rain.
Baker predicts El Niño will become more pronounced, making what he describes as “normally a hot and dry June” a time to watch for thunderstorms and flash flooding.
“That means we could see a wetter than normal summer monsoon season,” Baker said. “We could see it start as early as the Fourth of July and linger until September.”
