Cold temperatures and soggy weather are here to stay through Saturday, with 3 to 6 inches of snow forecast in the San Juan Mountains and rain below 10,000 feet in elevation.
The system is expected to continue its path northeast, making way for a high pressure zone early next week, meaning a return to sunny and dry conditions with above-average temperatures.
Montezuma County weather spotter Jim Andrus reported that about .11 inches of rain had fallen by about 2:15 p.m. Friday. There were no reports of hazardous conditions or flooding at that time, according to Cortez Dispatch.
Cortez experienced a very dry October, with just .07 inches of precipitation for the entire month, Andrus reported. That total is 5 percent of normal rainfall totals for the month of October, and is well below the average total of 1.3 inches. The total precipitation for the year so far is 9.59 inches, about an inch under the average total for the year through October.
The center of the Gulf Coast storm was expected to push its way into Southwest Colorado on Friday night and Saturday, said Megan Stackhouse, meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction.
“This system is more on the mild side, because a lot of moisture associated with it is from the gulf (of Mexico),” she said. “The conditions are going to be more slushy and snowpacked (in the mountains).”
A winter weather advisory is in effect from midnight until noon Saturday for portions of the San Juan Mountains.
Temperatures Monday and Tuesday are expected to climb into the lower 60s. The average for this time of year is the mid-50s, Stackhouse said. Precipitation systems are expected to move north out of Southwest Colorado on Saturday, according to the National Weather Service.
Sunny and dry conditions are expected to persist through next week. A storm is brewing off the coast of the Pacific Northwest, but it shouldn’t approach Southwest Colorado until the week of Nov. 14, if it holds together, she said.
“After this moves through, it’s going to be high-pressure,” she said.
Journal reporter Jacob Klopfenstein contributed to this article.