Drought for the west

We've had a great monsoon the last week plus. Too good in some areas, with a lot of flash flooding. Here's the Dolores River gauge at Gateway showing those afternoon flash events.

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Motorcycled down to gateway Saturday. It was pretty crazy. At least half a dozen spots from Uravan to Gateway where the state had cleared the red dirt from the road. Got stuck waiting for the highway to open by Sawpit on the way home. 2 ft of mud and boulders across the road in places. Wish we could have taken advantage and ran the Dolores to Dewey bridge!!
 
Smoke from that CA fires hit UT today due to northwesterly cold front blowing in. Can’t imagine what it’s like for you folks in the midst of it. 600 miles away, and this is what the sun looked like here today. Sorry for the poor quality iPhone pic - it doesn’t do it justice. I had the windows opened this morning and literally went outside to see if the hill above my place was on fire.

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I’m in North Central Montana. Dry as I’ve seen it. Hoping for rain this weekend. Went out to set antelope blinds today and only 1 reservoir had any water and that was pretty thick.
 
Spent last week all over western wyoming and wet is the word! Seen rain almost everyday but some days more than others. Snake is flowing high and i didnt even want to fish the buffalo fork cause it was so muddy with run off. Big mud slide near cooke blocked road out of NE park gate. We needed some rain but we are doing way better than most of montana. Hopefully you guys have been getting some rain up north! I dont know of any fires that are not contained in wyoming, hopefully no new ones pop up since getting close to seasons.
 
All of the pothole ponds around here are either dry or mud. Wheat harvest is several weeks early, stubble is about two inches high this year. Range conditions are absolutely poor, and I would expect next years dawn crop to be very slim unless we get a good fall greenup.
 
We're back to hot and the monsoons are on stall again, like the last few years. Clouds up. Spits a few drops and moves on.
Hope it comes back. 2 months to go and yesterday there was an afternoon wilting of the green. At least I have more grass now than I have had in years.
Smokey the last 3 days too. All that smoke from where I moved from. Almost 1800 mile journey filtered thru the Rockies.
 
Just spent a very wet/chilly week in Idaho. Rolled into Great Falls a bit ago…still in the 90’s. Plus fires all the way through Montana thus far 😩

Relatives in Central Montana have already decided they will be closing their ranch to all hunting this season until conditions significantly improve. Sounds like most of their neighbors will be doing the same.
 
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