mayjawintastawm

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.

Aaaaand... I'm now in D4 drought, first time in my life I think I have been there. A 30 foot tall, 45 year old pine in my yard is dying from lack of water, trying to save it.

102 to 53 here in about 16 hours... nice!! Uncommon to see such a big temp drop in the summer.

At my house near Centennial Airport we've received 5.05" YTD. DEN is a bit better at 5.65". Record driest year is 7.48" in 2002. I'm guessing we won't quite end up that dry, but it will be close. Good shot at top 10 driest, anyway.

...here I am, stuck in a dry zone in Parker..." Apologies to Stealers Wheel, if they're still alive.

And this is why we can't have nice plants. Blue dot is my house. 0.01" rain the last 4 days.

It's just SO frustrating (and this goes back to last Fall, really) when any kind of deterministic forecasts seem to underperform time after time after time, so it ends up being like Charlie Brown and the football (yes, I'm dating myself). For many in the SE Metro, including smokeybandit and me, it's been a constant state of "wait till next week/month/year" for a year or so. Before that, in fact, the region tended to overperform a bit, especially with snowstorms, acting like the northern edge of the Palmer Divide that it is. This year however, prior to last week, we had barely over 4 inches of water YTD, reflected by the D3 designation that for a time was the only part of the Metro area that had it. It messes with your mind!

Glorious here, 0.45" from an outflow-generated storm. Finally. Most in 6 weeks or more. Temp went from 96 to 66 in a couple of hours. You'll get it, eventually!

Nonsoon again, completely skunked here. Try again. Not just here, but the coverage that was forecast never really happened.

We had 0.03" (total 0.07" for the month) and Centennial Airport had 0.02". Clearly very hit and miss, with areas north, east and south doing better. Keep fingers crossed for today.

Great point. I guess you could also use T/TD spread.

That's why I hate RH, it's a measure of nothing important. Why do people use it instead of DP? I remember getting out my sling psychrometer when I was a 12 year old weather geek (and one time losing my grip as the thermometers went flying), and using tables to figure it out.

Mine too. Will we see measurable precipitation the next few days before it gets hot again over the weekend?

Indeed it does. I think out of the last 4 times we've gone camping, there's been a fire ban for 3. Interesting AFD from BOU this afternoon about next Tues-Wed: I can't imagine what this feels like now... I'd bet one of the 3 times PW exceeded 1.5" was in the flood of Sept 2013, which was the only time I've felt like there was a tropical storm in CO (small dense raindrops, air you could cut with a knife). It was interesting to note that average PW increases to 1.3-1.5" for the Denver area, with the EC ENS having the highest values near 1.5" (seems overdone as only 3 soundings from Denver have EVER exceeded 1.5" PW).

I could tell it was super-warm up high, because with a dewpoint of 50 and a temp of 95 (which it was at my house) there weren't even any clouds. Not even the slightest hint of convection. Ugh.

Amazing how they are so consistent in forming as widely scattered light storms then really blowing up about 40-50 miles east of the Metro and consolidating. Yesterday the line was solid from more or less Scottsbluff down to south of La Junta. Glad I was not trying to fly into DEN.