Following several days of hot, dry weather, Colorado’s Western Slope is poised to see a period of rainy skies with possible thunderstorms ahead of what meteorologists expect to be an active monsoon season arriving later this summer.

Beginning Tuesday, a wave of energy is expected to track across the Northern and Central Rockies, leading to a significant uptick in thunderstorm activity statewide, according to a July 6 report from OpenSnow Meteorologist Alan Smith.

The forecast shows a moderate-to-high chance of showers and thunderstorms across the High Country beginning Tuesday afternoon, with patchy smoke lingering from the morning through the early afternoon due to active fires located across Southeast Utah and Southern Colorado.

Wednesday is expected to bring more of the same, with up to a 40% chance of showers and thunderstorms and possible wind gusts up to 25 miles per hour across the northern and central mountains, according to the National Weather Service. Thunderstorms could become more scattered with limited moisture on Thursday, followed by a return to clear skies by Friday.

Temperatures across the northern and central mountains are forecast to sit in the 70s and 80s throughout the week, with some areas, including Glenwood Springs and Steamboat Springs, reaching into the 90s by the weekend as hot and dry conditions once again take hold of the region.

Little-to-no impact on wildfire risk

While stronger storms throughout the week could produce locally heavy rain in some of the mountains, drier air at lower elevations could lead to a “dry thunderstorm” setup when paired with gusty winds and limited rainfall, especially on Thursday, Smith wrote in the report.

The possibility of dry thunderstorms — bringing lightning strikes on dry vegetation with no rain to extinguish the resulting sparks — could heighten wildfire risk in drought-stricken regions of the state.

“There is still some concern about what thunderstorm outflow winds could do to ongoing wildfires if these fires themselves do not receive meaningful rain,” Smith wrote.

Gillian Felton, a Grand Junction meteorologist with the National Weather Service, said it’s hard to say whether the upcoming showers will impact the state’s extreme fire risk. Because the showers and thunderstorms forecast for this week likely won’t be dropping a significant amount of precipitation, it presumably won’t do much to impact existing wildfires across the state.

Much of Colorado’s Western Slope remains in the highest level of drought as of July 2, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor.

“Even though we are getting this push of moisture, it’s really rather weak,” Felton said. “While some localized areas might see more precipitation than others, overall, this moisture moves through quickly and we get right back to very dry, very hot conditions.”

Is monsoon season officially here?

Though this week’s rainy forecast marks a temporary uptick in moisture, Felton said it doesn’t yet signal the start of Colorado’s monsoon season.

“We pretty quickly will return to drier weather,” Felton said. “By Friday, anomalously dry air moves back in, and we’re looking at very hot and very dry conditions this weekend. This little push of moisture we’re getting is nice, but it’s going to be quite short-lived.”

Although hot and dry conditions will take hold across Colorado’s mountains over the weekend, confidence is growing that significant monsoon moisture could surge into the Western U.S. sometime during the week of July 13, though it will likely hit the Northern and Central Rockies before it arrives in Colorado.

“The core of this monsoon moisture surge is coming out of the Gulf of California with strong southerly flow, which may favor Arizona, Utah, Wyoming, Nevada, Eastern Idaho, and the Sierra (Nevada) in California,” Smith wrote in the report. “But this moisture should eventually spread into Western Colorado as well, which is in great need of meaningful rains given the ongoing fire situation.”

Longer-range models are hinting at an overall active monsoon for the second half of July and into August, according to Smith.

Charlie Childs, the CEO of a biotechnology startup, moved the company to Colorado for the lifestyle and because she believes the state is an up-and-coming hub for the industry.

Ditto for Blake Herren, head of the startup Raven Space Systems, on Colorado’s quality of life. And outreach by the state and the business community made an impression as he was considering moving from Kansas City.

Their moves to Colorado come as a business coalition has raised concerns that the state’s status as a draw for tech and innovation companies is in danger. More than 230 business, technology and civic leaders sent a letter in April to elected leaders, saying that Colorado is losing companies and jobs to other states.

Palantir Technologies’ relocation of its headquarters early this year from Denver to Miami was a warning sign for those who believe Colorado’s reputation as a national leader in innovation and high tech is eroding. In a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the data-analytics and artificial-intelligence powerhouse said the effects of climate change in Colorado and the state’s regulation of AI were risks to the company.

But beyond the splashy headlines about Palantir’s exit, the coalition’s letter warned that other states are luring away companies and beating out Colorado for investment and entrepreneurs “by offering clearer policy signals, faster regulatory pathways, and stronger alignment between government and growth.”

The letter has been signed by more than 430 business and tech leaders and investors, the coalition said on its website.

Gov. Jared Polis was a tech and internet entrepreneur before entering politics. After Ensuring Colorado’s Innovation Future released its letter, Polis said he was committed to making the state “an even better place” for companies to grow and innovate.

“We always want to double down on our successes and we want to change whatever isn’t working,” Polis told The Denver Post.

He said his administration has been working on one of the coalition’s recommendations: improving the supply and affordability of housing.

“We’ve removed a lot of barriers to housing. We did condo liability reform,” Polis said. “You make it easier to build, reduce regulation and red tape, speed up the approval process.”

But a bill limiting local governments’ ability to set minimum lot sizes for single-family homes to make more room for housing failed in this year’s legislative session.

Making it through the legislature was a bill requiring state departments to establish a schedule to review rules and determine whether they’re still needed. The bill was signed into law.

Polis and Eve Lieberman, executive director of the Colorado Office of Economic Development and International Trade, or OEDIT, met with about 70 business leaders last month. The session was the first in a series planned across the state to focus on the business community, innovation, supporting good paying jobs and Colorado’s economy, according to OEDIT.

“That acknowledgement that we want to do better is an important part of showing the business community that Colorado is the place to be and the place to invest, because we’re always excited to learn how we can be more competitive,” Polis said.

One of the tools the state uses is the Opportunity Now Colorado program, which aims to grow existing companies, attract new ones and “train up” workers for new positions.

The program focuses on the state’s strategic priorities, such as promoting advanced industries, and helps fill training gaps where there are workforce shortages, Lieberman said.

The Opportunity Now program is in its second year and the tax credits that companies can apply for will build on the $90 million in grants that have been awarded, Lieberman said. The grants are projected to serve 20,000 Coloradans across almost every county in the state.

“We have already placed almost over 8,000  workers into those advanced industries, healthcare and education, where there are workforce shortages,” Lieberman said.

The biotech company that Childs co-founded with Madeline Eiken received a $250,000 advanced industries grant from OEDIT. They moved the company, Intero Biosystems, to Colorado from Michigan over Christmas.

Childs and Eiken trained with Jason Spence at the University of Michigan. Childs said Spence was the original inventor of  the process that develops miniature human intestines, or “organoids,” from stem cells that she and Eiken then commercialized.

“If you have a drug that you want to take into clinical trials, you can test it on our organ instead of a mouse or a dog or a monkey and hopefully get a better data point on how it’s going to react in humans and ethically not use animals,” Childs said.

Intero hopes to work on other organ systems as well. The company chose to move to Colorado because people didn’t want to be in the industry hubs on the two coasts.

“We feel like we can live a much better life here. Our employees can live a much better life here,” Childs said. “From the business side, there are so many resources here, like the OEDIT grant.”

Up-and-coming biotech hub?

Childs said the Colorado Bioscience Association was welcoming, helping Intero employees plug into networks. The company has set up shop in a building for startups on the University of Colorado Anschutz medical campus.

“One thing about Colorado is it’s not one of the big biotech hubs, but it is like the up-and-coming biotech hub. We’re just really excited to be here at the early stages of it really coming into fruition,” Childs said.

Herren, CEO of Raven Space Systems, had a personal connection to Colorado. He grew up in Oklahoma and has visited Colorado since he was a child to go mountain climbing.

There’s also the fact that Colorado has a robust aerospace and defense ecosystem and didn’t seem to be as expensive as other areas where a lot of other aerospace startups are located, Herren said. “It seemed like a good balance of access to talent and access to investors that would be interested in what we’re building.”

The company developed a 3D printing technology that specializes in aerospace-grade composites. The applications include hypersonics, propulsion systems, reentry vehicles, satellites, aircraft, missiles and rockets.

Raven moved from Kansas City to Colorado last year and decided on Broomfield as the site for its pilot facility. Herren said the company just started shipping its first parts for rocket motors.

When the company was looking at relocating to Colorado, Herren said state officials and the people in the industry reached out. He said OEDIT briefed him on available grants.

The company landed a $250,000 advanced industries grant from OEDIT. Last year, the Colorado Economic Development Commission approved up to $5.8 million in job growth tax incentives over eight years for the company. The tax credits are contingent on meeting job creation and salary requirements.

“There have been a lot of examples of successful startups before us to kind of give us that level of confidence,” Herren said.

But it’s also good to have the kind of major aerospace companies found in Colorado because they draw investors, other companies and government interests, he said.

Ranchers in the path of the Aspen Acres Fire are not only rushing to get their animals out, but they’re also helping others save their herds as the fire approaches.

The Aspen Acres Fire has grown to over 86,000 acres, but firefighters are gaining ground. The fire has reached approximately 6% containment. Firefighters have been working to protect people and property, but the very active, fast-moving fire has destroyed more than 150 homes and other structures so far.

Ranchers around Beulah, Colorado City and Rye have been rushing to get their animals out as the fire spread across the area. Neighbors like Luke Woduick have also come together to help each other evacuate livestock from danger. Woduick says ranchers worked quickly to cut fences and move livestock out of the fire’s path as conditions rapidly changed.

“I can’t even explain how bad it is. I just feel for all those animals just trying to escape; there’s a lot of animals that didn’t get out. It’s a total catastrophe,” said Woduick. “It’s just, losing an animal is just, you feed these animals, and you tend to them, and you water them, and you scratch on them, and you love on them. But, to actually see some of them die from this fire, it’s sad.”

The Pueblo County Sheriff’s Office has asked evacuees to cut fences and give the animals a chance to survive if they can’t take them. They also told all trucks and trailers helping with animal rescue, “If you see flames, cut fences for the animals and leave immediately.”

Pueblo CART Livestock Division – Community Animal Response Team has been helping to coordinate livestock rescue and evacuation centers. They say the shelter at the state fairgrounds is currently housing 1,330 animals, but there’s plenty of room for more.

Despite losing his own ranch in Beulah, Woduick says he spent days helping others relocate livestock, transporting them to the Pueblo County Fairgrounds. He worries more for the residents who have lost their homes than for himself.

“I just lost my ranch, so, in a couple of years, the grass will grow. I have no complaints. Other people, they got all the heartache,” Woduick said.

Pueblo residents like Joey Musso are also doing what they can. Musso and his family own a local restaurant in Pueblo. On Saturday, they closed early to provide food for first responders and volunteers.

“This is devastating, and just to hear what people are going through right now, it’s just absolutely heartbreaking,” said Musso.

Despite flames destroying homes and communities, Musso says showing support for one another is crucial right now. 

“Truly, nobody comes together like Puebloans and people in Colorado. I mean, it’s just amazing what everybody’s doing. It’s just one huge joint effort where people are taking care of one another,” Musso said.

Fire trucks from California are the latest in a string of support from across the country sent to help Colorado. Officials are hopeful they will contain the fire within the next few days.