Western Colorado is at the ‘epicenter of drought’ as a hot, dry summer saps water supplies

Drought and long, hot summer days are sucking Western Colorado’s rivers dry, parching farm fields and fueling the massive wildfires proliferating across the region.

A chunk of northwestern Colorado in the last week plunged into exceptional drought — the most dire category recorded by the U.S. Drought Monitor. The swath of affected land represents 7% of the state and covers most of Garfield and Rio Blanco counties, as well as parts of Moffat, Mesa, Delta, Routt and Pitkin counties.

“Northwestern Colorado is the epicenter of drought in the whole country right now,” said Russ Schumacher, Colorado’s state climatologist and the director of the Colorado Climate Center. “It’s about as bad as it gets.”

Exceptional drought is expected to occur once every 50 years, Schumacher said. So far this su