COLORADO, USA — Monday was the second consecutive night with widespread severe weather in Colorado. More severe weather is forecasted for Tuesday. Colorado's severe weather activity has been minimal with a well below-average number of severe weather warnings issued since June 15.
The reason for the lack of severe weather is a meteorological phenomenon known as a "death ridge," a term that has become a common phrase used by meteorologists in recent years.
If you watched the new movie "Twisters," one of the storm chasers referenced it. In the film, she said, "We better get after these storms before the 'death ridge' comes."
What she’s referring to is a huge ridge of high pressure that can sometimes set up in the summer months, and it happened this summer during July in the western U.S. Intense high pressure like that has a lot of hot dry air that pushes downward and prevents storm and rain clouds from rising.
So high a ridge of high pressure like that means the death of rain and storms and it delivers heat and drought. Denver had 15 days of consecutive 90-degree days from July 24 through Aug. 7 with less than a quarter inch of rain falling during that time.
This July was the second least active in terms of severe weather in the past 7 years. There were only 41 severe weather thunderstorm warnings issued by the National Weather Service in the area which shows the strength of this summer's "death ridge."
The 2024 summer "death ridge" began to break down on Aug. 8. The conditions allowed some monsoon moisture to flow into Colorado from the southwest. Now that monsoon moisture is meeting up with a few shortwave troughs gliding past the northern states, delivering severe weather into the forecast, along with flash flooding.
Monday night was one of the most active severe weather days since Jun. 15 and Tuesday is forecast to be another active day.