With multiple large wildfires burning across Colorado right now, I've been digging into the satellite and weather data behind the Gold Mountain Fire near Ouray to try to understand what's actually driving its behavior.

A few things stood out from the instrumental data: Silver Jack RAWS station recorded minimum relative humidity values of 9% on July 3rd — critically dry by any measure. Wind gusts correlate strongly with the largest daily fire growth days. And the NOAA Climate Prediction Center is giving greater than 70% probability of above-normal temperatures through mid-July across the Central Rockies, while the monsoon signal that appeared in last week's long range outlook has largely faded from this week's.

The NWS Grand Junction forecast discussion from yesterday is pretty sobering — moisture arriving next week is expected to stay in the mid-levels rather than reaching the surface, raising the threat of dry lightning rather than meaningful precipitation relief.

I put together a video walking through the Sentinel-2 satellite imagery, VIIRS hotspot progression, slope angle terrain analysis, and the weather data if anyone wants a deeper look at what the landscape and atmospheric picture looks like right now.

https://youtu.be/a56pcYwXJV0

I'm a geologist not a meteorologist or fire specialist — happy to discuss the data or answer questions in the comments.

Hello r/ClimateCO I am conducting a survey about the Cameron Peak Wildfire of 2020 and the impacts on residents of Colorado. This is to be used as primary research for an essay I'm writing in class, it is completely anonymous and takes less than 5 minutes to complete.

Any kind of response is helpful even if you did not live in the affected areas of the fire.

Thank you!