“This was probably the most extreme single summer month that we’ve ever seen in western Colorado,” said Russ Schumacher, Colorado’s state climatologist, noting that wildfires were also fueled by extreme dry conditions (Scientific American).
This roller coaster forecast was "truly something that I've never seen," says assistant state climatologist Becky Bolinger (KUNC/NPR).
"When you have warmer temperatures and you're lengthening the warm season, you're also lengthening the time when wildfires have a chance to start and grow," says Becky Bolinger, Colorado's assistant state climatologist (NPR).
“If this is our only year of drought, we will be OK. We will recover but we do need some precipitation,” said Colorado State University Climatologist Becky Bolinger (9News).
Every part of the Centennial State is presently under drought or abnormally dry conditions for the first time in nearly a decade (NBC News).
Becky Bolinger, a drought specialist at Colorado State University and the assistant state climatologist, said the lack of new snow in late spring affected the rate of melting (New York Times).
What appeared to be a fairly typical Colorado afternoon of wind-producing storms Saturday morphed into possibly the most widespread wind-specific thunderstorm event in the state's recorded history (Denver Post).
Mineral County in southwest Colorado was among places having record-low precipitation in April, according to Becky Bolinger, assistant state climatologist at the Colorado Climate Center.
Researchers at the Colorado Climate Center at CSU are still hard at work maintaining a 130-year weather record in Fort Collins (Colorado Public Radio).
A study published by Colorado State University’s Colorado Climate Center found that central Colorado’s snowpack is diminishing by an average of .49 inches per decade (Aspen Public Radio).