Drought, smoke, fire, three months of unusually hot late summer / fall days, a puny monsoon, a La Niña forecast: Welcome to the American West’s 2020 dimate disaster.

For this just-completed water year, October 2019-September 2020, Ouray registered only 16.85 inches of precipitation, 72 percent of its historic normal of 23.05 inches. It was also the second drought water year in the last three. 2017-2018 was even drier, with only 16.83 inches. Even the ample moisture of water year 2018-2019, whi...