mayjawintastawm

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.

great- will keep fingers crossed for today. Just a trace here since 6/25.

Fun fact: Precip year to date at my house=4.18 inches, roughly 55% of normal (Centennial). Yikes. Denver has 4.7".

Yes, between the consistent gusty SSW wind and the smoke, it's the most uncomfortable fire weather in the Denver Metro since the Black Forest fire several years back. The Aspen Acres fire has doubled in size in 24 hours, now just shy of 48K acres per Watch Duty (which is an awesome website).

Thursday finally delivered to some extent with about 0.3" in an hour and a half. Total all week just under half an inch. I think it all evaporated since 9 AM.

Yeah, we got 0.08"- storms really fizzled as they came out of the foothills here last night around 10 PM, no good explanation. Continuous lightning and thunder to the west, walked the dogs quickly and took the plants in, then 20 minutes later just some light rain and poof.

Warmer for sure here today, and earlier, and sunnier- also less of the chilly N/NE wind we had yesterday. DP at 1 PM here was 62, the highest I've seen in a long time when it wasn't actively raining. All we need is lift. EDIT: 85/63 at 3 PM. That's about the least Front Range-ish you can get.

Smoke was a big inhibitor of heating yesterday along the central and northern Front Range/Urban Corridor, so storms never popped locally even when the outflows from the other storms moved through. Cap for the win. Hopefully today will be different (though I certainly don't need 2" hail!)

OK, for the mets out there: I saw something yesterday that I haven't seen or heard of before. There was an air quality alert for ozone, but it wasn't for the typical sun + stagnant air + vehicle exhaust combination. It was for a "stratospheric intrusion". The weather was stable and I don't think winds were that weird. What's that all about?