Recent rains have provided momentary relief from the drought, but it is still hanging on.
Longtime local weather observer James Andrus told KSJD that the month of August saw 1.63 inches of rain in Cortez, which is 122 percent of normal.
The storms in September added nearly three quarters of an inch more. Almost all of that came during the three-day period starting on Sept. 12.
But according to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Montezuma County remains in severe drought and that is expected to continue for the next three months.
From January through the end of August, 2025 has been the county’s 15th driest year to date over the past 131 years.
Of course, the biggest weather news recently was the formation of two tornadoes in southeast Utah near the Colorado border on Sept. 13.
In online posts, the Navajo Police Department said one funnel destroyed three homes in the McCracken Mesa and Cahone Mesa areas. No people were injured.
Tornadoes are extremely rare in this area. Andrus said he was able to find official mention of just three in Montezuma County in the past 50 years.
One of those touched down in the middle of Cortez in 1985 and had a half-mile-long, 40-yard-wide travel path. It was classified as an EF2, which generates winds of up to 125 miles per hour.
Another, an EF0, touched down a mile west of Highway 160 on July 18, 2011, and an EF1 swirled on Sept. 5, 1070, near Road G.
Gail Binkly is a career journalist who has worked for the Colorado Springs Gazette and Cortez Journal, and was the editor of the Four Corners Free Press, based in Cortez.