Colorado’s reprieve from drought lasted two weeks as warm temperatures and little precipitation have put the southwest corner of the state back to dry conditions.

The U.S. Drought Monitor last week reported that 20% of the state is back in drought, just two weeks after its July 6 finding that the state was drought-free for the first time since 2019.

A broad swath of southwest Colorado — including Grand Junction, Gunnison, Durango and Montrose — has returned to abnormally dry conditions. The Western Slope received unusual amounts of rain through June, said Norv Larson, a meteorologist with The National Weather Service in Grand Junction.

“It just kind of precipitously ended here at the end of June,” he said.

Despite a heavy snowpack and a wet spring in Colorado this year, climatologists say droughts will be more common and more severe. One good year cannot reverse years of warmer and drier weather.

Read more from Elise Schmelzer at DenverPost.com.