1. El Niño made a recovery last month, and is now entering the time of year when changes from month to month should be less pronounced than previously. Such calmer behavior also translates into a better consensus among different ENSO forecasts, now indicating moderate El Niño conditions for the upcoming winter.
   
   
2. Historically, even modest El Niño conditions have been associated with wetter than average conditions for November in Colorado and several adjacent states, while September and October show almost no tilt in the odds for wet or dry conditions.
   
   
3. The new experimental forecast for October through December precipitation shows a modest shift in the odds towards wetter-than-average conditions in northeastern Colorado, compared to continued uncertainty over the mountains and western Colorado. Further west and south, there remains an unusual amount of uncertainty even for Arizona, where El Niño should be good for a wet fall. However, as this forecast illustrates, there are many other influences on our climate than just El Niño, and so far this fall they appear to be more in conflict with each other than in other years. Looking beyond the next three months, the outlook for early next year is guardedly optimistic, with substantial increases in the odds for wet weather over most of Arizona, much of New Mexico and eastern Colorado. Unfortunately, the outlook for the north-central mountains of Colorado remains as uncertain for late winter as it is for the fall right now.
   
   
4. Wet weather returned to Colorado during the last few weeks, with many locales already exceeding their normal monthly precipitation for September. For much of the state, this could mean the first wet month since August 2001, wrapping up an extraordinary year of continuous drought conditions. Whether this is truly the beginning of the end of the Colorado Drought of 2002, or just temporary relief, remains to be seen. With the recent rains soaking the parched ground just before the end of the growing season, soil moisture is at least partially restored, and fire danger has been much reduced from its extreme values through much of the summer. Snow-capped mountains earlier this week remind us that the ski season is not far behind, and may even be off to a better-than-average start, if historic El Niño relationships come through for much of the state this November.
   
   
5. Bottomline: The extraordinary Colorado drought of 2002 may have reached its peak last month, along with one last major peak in wildfire activity levels. Although the outlook for the remainder of this year is not overly wet, the rains of September may have broken the vicious cycle of low soil moisture and fire-caused hazy skies that tended to perpetuate our drought through the summer. With a slate thus wiped clear, and a strengthened El Niño in place, we should have a better chance of realizing the El Niño-related potential of near-normal or even wet months ahead of us. Unfortunately, a near-normal or even slightly wet snow season won't be sufficient to refill our reservoirs. Although a repeat of last year's dry fall, winter, and spring is not likely, it would exacerbate our drought conditions so much that we need to consider what such a scenario would entail. Future updates of this forecast page should reduce the current uncertainty in this outlook.
   

--Prepared by: Klaus Wolter (kew@cdc.noaa.gov), (303) 497 -6340.