Water year ends WETTER than normal!

San Juan County suffered through one of the dryest and warmest winters on record. Then a bone-dry spring and early summer triggered the largest wildfires in memory.
However, the recently completed water year finished with higher-than-normal precipitation in the county. The mind-boggling truth comes at the end of the recent water year, which starts on October 1 and finishes on September 30.
The phenomenon was not isolated to San Juan County, as many areas in the state had higher than normal precipitation for the year.
On average, Monticello receives 15.19 inches of precipitation per year. In the recently completed water year, the total precipitation was 18.85 inches. This is 124 percent of normal.
The eight consecutive months of dry weather in Monticello brought just 6.14 inches of precipitation, but that dry spell was swamped by four wet months that turned the tide on the water year and brought 12.71 inches of rain.
Precipitation in Monticello, as reported by Scott Boyle, totaled 4.50 inches in October 2025, 2.16 inches in July, 2.84 inches in August and 3.21 inches in September.
It is similar in Bluff, where Jim Hook measured 8.43 inches for the water year, which is 109 percent of the 115-year average of 7.76 inches.
More than half of the rain in Bluff came in two wet months, with 2.11 inches in October 2025 and 2.18 inches in September 2026.
The rains triggered remarkable water flows on the San Juan River near Bluff, with discharges exceeding 8,000 cubic feet per second in both months.
Heavy rains damaged roads and shut schools in southern San Juan County in mid-September.
Blanding also had higher than normal precipitation for the water year, with Kendall Laws measuring a total of 13.73 inches of rain for the year, compared to a multi-year average of 13.17 inches. This represents 104 percent of normal.
The Camp Jackson Sno-tel Station, which measures weather conditions in the Abajo Mountains, measure more than 30 inches of precipitation for the water year.
These outcomes would have been mind-boggling to many San Juan County residents in early July, when several months of dry conditions helped trigger the Babylon Fire in the Abajo Mountains. The fire eventually consumed more than 107,000 acres before crews and changing conditions helped turn the tide.
In adjacent southwest Colorado, the Ferris Fire consumed nearly 65,000 acres at the same time. Several thousand fire fighters were involved in the massive effort to fight the fires, with an estimated total cost for the two fires of nearly $104 million.
Many areas, including approximately one half of Monticello, was placed on Set status for potential evacuation orders.
Looking ahead, while local residents are grateful for the wet late summer months, many are hoping for a wet winter in the coming months. Area reservoirs are at very low levels and need a strong snowpack to raise the water level.