In the short term, storms, with maybe even snow, will come at Durango in waves over the next several days, a hydrologist with the National Weather Service in Grand Junction said Thursday.

“The San Juan Mountains will receive multiple waves through the weekend,” Aldis Strautins said.

A second wave should push further south Friday and Saturday, with snow as low as 7,500 feet, Strautins said.

Then from Saturday night into Sunday, a cold front will move through, Strautins said. The trajectory will keep it further north.

But the hazardous weather outlook map posted on the National Weather Service website Thursday is not necessarily indicative of the November through January winter period just beginning.

The National Climate Prediction Center is leaning toward a moderately wet winter, Strautins said.

But it might not materialize.

A Climate Prediction Center release Thursday gave a 58 percent chance of El Niño conditions developing.

El Niño is a warming of ocean water in the equatorial Pacific that can bring increased precipitation to several regions, Southwest Colorado among them.

“Overall, several features across the tropical Pacific are characteristic of borderline El Niño,” the release said.

The combined atmospheric and oceanic state remains El Niño-neutral, the release said.

Phenomena that contribute to El Niño conditions are sea-surface temperature, subsurface heat, low- and upper-level wind and rainfall.

As in October, most weather models predict an El Niño during the October-December period that continues into early 2015, the release said.

“However, the ongoing lack of clear atmospheric-ocean coupling has reduced confidence that El Niño will fully materialize,” the release says.

If El Niño does emerge, forecasters see a weak event, the release said.

Strautins reads the evidence as a weak El Niño.

Either condition could bring more precipitation to Southwest Colorado, he said.

daler@durangoherald.com