Five weeks and counting: drought improves again this week in Colorado

Drought in Colorado has been gradually improving since early July and less than 25% of the state now has severe drought.

The weekly drought monitor is released each Thursday morning and the most recent update shows a 3% decrease in severe drought and a small change to moderate drought. The two worse drought categories were virtually unchanged from a week ago. About 5% of Colorado is experiencing extreme drought and less than 1% of the state has exceptional drought.

The most concerning drought continues to plague the far southwest and northeast corners of the state including Julesburg, Sterling, Holyoke, and Cortez.

For Denver and the Front Range, only Weld County and the northeast corner of the Denver metro area including the airport remain under severe drought (orange on the map below).

A week ago portions of the Palmer Divide including Parker and Franktown had severe drought. The heavy rain in that area on Monday undoubtedly helped improve the drought situation in that area.

For now most of Denver and the urban corridor continues to experience moderate drought. If enough moisture continue to arrive frequently enough, the next downgrade would be "abnormally dry"  which currently covers the southwest corner of the metro area including Littleton, Highlands Ranch, and the Highway 285 corridor west of Englewood.

The next chance for any substantial, widespread rain is likely several days away. At this time, the chance for rain in the metro area through Sunday is no higher than 30%.