mayjawintastawm

I've hiked in that area up to the passes in the area (though I've never done the "official Four Pass Loop") and camped by a couple of lakes. Trails are steep and rocky up to the formerly glaciated headwalls pretty much everywhere in CO, though maybe more in that area because of the rock itself. Poles are a good idea (and will help preserve your knees for future decades!)

I have a friend who's hiked all the 14ers and many more than once, and for him the Bells are some of the most dangerous he calls it "hiking on a giant pile of dinner plates". But not till you get above pass level (12K).

August rain at my house=2.25". Was hoping for a bit more to end the month and it rained the last 4 days in a row but with a whopping total of 0.09". It's pretty uncommon to get monsoon moisture here after Labor Day but we'll see....

They are tornadoes that get reported to NWS by spotters/law enforcement/etc but may not have been confirmed by NWS. Some are duplicates (I think), some turn out to be non-tornadic wind events.

That's pretty typical for the mountains during monsoon season. Some years you can set your watch by them, right after lunch. I've been caught in more than one on my bike, grateful for the helmet. One good thing is that the mountains very rarely have severe-size (1") hail.

Just got 0.42" rain in 16 minutes with rates peaking at 2.5"/hr. All done though. Parts of Parker got hammered. Saw some broad rotation in the cloud base on my way home from work in Aurora. EDIT: round 2 developing from outflow. Quite an interesting afternoon, all of a sudden!

Grand total of 0.03" rain in the last week. Grrr. Plenty of wind though. Also, August has a very good shot of being in the top 3 warmest at DEN, after 2nd warmest July ever. Current average is 76.8, tied for #3 all time (77.0 is #`1) and the forecast for the next week doesn't go below that.

Glad you experienced it! The clouds and light in the early mornings and evenings have been really spectacular the last few days. The rule of thumb of 4-5 degrees drop per 1000 feet works pretty well most of the time when planning. As ValpoVike wrote, snow can happen any time of year up there, though mid June through Labor Day it is seldom a driving problem. Only another 4 weeks till leaves start to change- and this year they may be early, not because of cold but because of drought stress.

1.65" total from the 4-day period here (none today). Yesterday we received less than 0.2" from the storm that produced over an inch and a half just 2 miles from here. There was a lot of mud and rocks up to fist size on the paved Cherry Creek bike trail just north of the dam this morning, and plenty of standing water east and north of the campground. The creek itself looked like it stayed within its banks in the area, though.

3 days with rain in a row here: 0.13" Wed, 0.97" Thurs (though could have done without the 1"+ hail which caused a little garden damage) and 0.39" yesterday. Can we make it 4? That would be the first time in a long, long time.

And the afternoon BOU AFD is now very pessimistic for much over the next few days in the Metro. Lots of "if"s in there.

And today it's almost back up to where it was on Monday. Guess it shows how hard it is to model these kinds of things. Could be a good opportunity to learn something?

QPF for me from the NWS for the Wed-Sat period was cut in half over the last 24 hours, right on schedule. Call me a weenie but we've seen this all many times over the last 9 months.

I think I'd believe it more if the QPF were based more on large-scale systems than reliant on atmospheric moisture + localized lift.

We've been lucky/people have been careful, I guess. Utah and especially the Northwest have been far worse, though we've had a few tragic fatalities here. Smoke is mainly aloft, not so much at the surface. More rain is always 5-6 days away. Maybe it will happen, someday. Meanwhile DEN has had its 6th or 7th 100 degree day today.