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Chinook
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We got more this evening, about .3".  It's crazy to see the feast or famine over the past 6 weeks.  Regarding the boulders, this road is directly below a ridge that was burned in Cameron Peak fire last summer...hence the unobstructed flows coming down the mountain in the drainages.  Burn Scar flooding is no joke we are learning, and it doesn't require a huge rain dump.

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In the "should we be jealous?" category, my old neighborhood in Shrewsbury, MA (just east of Worcester) just got 3.2" of rain this morning in under 2 hours from the remnants of Fred, with a maximum rain rate of 3.78"/hour at the peak. It's done now... though Henri may be interesting in a few days. I don't think I've ever experienced rain that heavy. Lots of localized flooding, but that area can take heavy rain with fairly minimal damage- probably mostly basements that need to be pumped out and cars turning into boats in low lying areas. 

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7 minutes ago, mayjawintastawm said:

In the "should we be jealous?" category, my old neighborhood in Shrewsbury, MA (just east of Worcester) just got 3.2" of rain this morning in under 2 hours from the remnants of Fred, with a maximum rain rate of 3.78"/hour at the peak. It's done now... though Henri may be interesting in a few days. I don't think I've ever experienced rain that heavy. Lots of localized flooding, but that area can take heavy rain with fairly minimal damage- probably mostly basements that need to be pumped out and cars turning into boats in low lying areas. 

If Fort Collins got 3.78" in an hour, there would be 7.56" of water on every street

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That sort of rainfall can indeed happen in Colorado, but with devastating effects.  The 1976 Big Thompson flood is quite the example.  From Wiki:

On July 31, 1976, during the celebration of Colorado's centennial, the Big Thompson Canyon was the site of a devastating flash flood that swept down the steep and narrow canyon, claiming the lives of 143 people, 5 of whom were never found. This flood was triggered by a nearly stationary thunderstorm near the upper section of the canyon that dumped 300 millimeters (12 inches) of rain in less than 4 hours (more than 3/4 of the average annual rainfall for the area). Little rain fell over the lower section of the canyon, where many of the victims were.

Around 9 p.m., a wall of water more than 6 meters (20 ft) high raced down the canyon at about 6 m/s (14 mph), destroying 400 cars, 418 houses and 52 businesses and washing out most of U.S. Route 34.[6] This flood was more than 4 times as strong as any in the 112-year record available in 1976, with a discharge of 1,000 cubic meters per second (35,000 ft³/s).

 
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19 minutes ago, Chinook said:

A supercell in the metro area has left a swath of large hail, and there may be a tornado at some point here. (no tornado confirmation that I know of.)

 

edit: eastern supercell on I-76 has intensified to 70 dBz.

I live in Broomfield.  That was a definite case of "oh, it's thundering a little bit outside, let me look outside.  Holy crap at the look of this Supercell!"  Then, it's hailing up to golf-ball size 1 minute later.

No tornado confirmation that I have heard of either, but a legit powerhouse of a supercell.

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7 hours ago, Chinook said:

If Fort Collins got 3.78" in an hour, there would be 7.56" of water on every street

yeah- soil type (less permeable here, very drainable there), prevalence of streams to drain water away (few here, more there), and terrain (steeps and plains here, rolling hills there) are all different. I don't know much about flash flood modeling, but I imagine there is an algorithm that takes those into account.

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13 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

yeah- soil type (less permeable here, very drainable there), prevalence of streams to drain water away (few here, more there), and terrain (steeps and plains here, rolling hills there) are all different. I don't know much about flash flood modeling, but I imagine there is an algorithm that takes those into account.

Well, quite ironically....Phillips County in the far NE plains received up to 9" of rain last night.  

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Yesterday: a collapsing storm over Cheyenne sent a windy outflow to Ft. Collins and Loveland with some wind gusts up to 40mph and low clouds coming in at sunset.

This evening: it was about 90 degrees at my place at 6:30. It's just too warm for this time of year. Some orange clouds at sunset. I saw just a bit of lightning to the southeast, but it was a small storm.

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The months of June, July and August have truly been on a hot and drying trend for several years in the Fort Collins area, specifically (this likely extends to much broader area but I'm talking about the FC area where I live).  I recently dug into historical weather records for FC - my source is the Western Regional Climate Center (wrcc.dri.edu).  What I found was pretty eye-opening.

The long-term mean for total precip. for June-July-Aug for FC is 4.75".  The last year FC had greater than average precip for these months was 2009 - over a decade ago.  In fact going back over 110 years of records, all decades up to the 2010's featured at least one year (and generally multiple years) that exceeded the average precip. for June-July-Aug. This includes the droughty 1930's and 1950's.  In case you're interested the wettest year I found for these months was 1997 at 14.79" and the driest was 1924 at .48".  I did not delve into the temperature records but its not going out on a limb to say its been damn hot overall (I would say starting 2000).

Barring a miracle in the next few days, this year in FC the precip for June-July-Aug will also be well below average at 1.77".  This is actually LESS than last year, the big fire year.  Again this is for FC - your mileage may vary at your location.

What does the future hold? Who knows, but the current trend for summer precip and temps is not encouraging. 

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On 8/28/2021 at 9:45 AM, finnster said:

The months of June, July and August have truly been on a hot and drying trend for several years in the Fort Collins area, specifically (this likely extends to much broader area but I'm talking about the FC area where I live).  I recently dug into historical weather records for FC - my source is the Western Regional Climate Center (wrcc.dri.edu).  What I found was pretty eye-opening.

The long-term mean for total precip. for June-July-Aug for FC is 4.75".  The last year FC had greater than average precip for these months was 2009 - over a decade ago.  In fact going back over 110 years of records, all decades up to the 2010's featured at least one year (and generally multiple years) that exceeded the average precip. for June-July-Aug. This includes the droughty 1930's and 1950's.  In case you're interested the wettest year I found for these months was 1997 at 14.79" and the driest was 1924 at .48".  I did not delve into the temperature records but its not going out on a limb to say its been damn hot overall (I would say starting 2000).

Barring a miracle in the next few days, this year in FC the precip for June-July-Aug will also be well below average at 1.77".  This is actually LESS than last year, the big fire year.  Again this is for FC - your mileage may vary at your location.

What does the future hold? Who knows, but the current trend for summer precip and temps is not encouraging. 

Thanks for looking into this! I've felt the same.  I'll have to dig into that database. Similar here south of Denver, though up through July 5 was actually pretty good. Jul 5-Aug together have been between 0.8" and 1" total. When it's dry here for months in a row, the soil in our backyard shrinks (even despite watering the lawn), causing the patio to sink and the (fortunately just cosmetic) vertical beams between the overhanging roof and the patio to float in midair. Right now they are about 1.5" over where they should be. In the spring, everything was perfectly flush.

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1 hour ago, mayjawintastawm said:

And, in the "why am I not surprised" department, it's looking like this August will be #4 warmest in Denver, in the 150th year of record keeping. Last August was #1 and 2019 will be tied for #5. So, 3 years in a row of top 5 warmest Augusts. Wow.

I agree - just wow.  For Fort Collins I did not look at temperature records but wouldn’t be surprised to see our recent Augusts in the record books.  June and July as well.  
 

It is almost like clockwork the past several years, the spring months are pretty wet and stormy and then when June rolls around its like a switch is flipped to hot and dry and pretty much stays that way the rest of summer until fall storms start materializing (if we’re lucky that is).  Definitely following that same script again.  I was glad to see some parts of Colorado have some monsoon activity this year - we didn’t see any of it in the FoCo area.

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August will have a mean temp of 72.0 or slightly higher for Fort Collins. Note: 1981-2010 climatology is 70.2F, but 1991-2010 climatology is notably higher at 70.7F. Today is another 91 degrees, at least, and the crud is back, with visibility only 5 miles. I tend to think of it like this: at least our area did not have the very high temps of the northern Plains and Pacific Northwest this summer. Also, our area is not listed as being in drought, except for Washington County, CO.

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My place got some very light rain on Wednesday night. Then I got a rain shower at 7:30-8:00 this morning and 6:30-7:00PM. For our afternoon storm we had a quick 0.25" or better with constant thunder in the cloud, but I didn't really see any lightning bolts. Then we had some orange clouds at sunset.

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1 hour ago, ValpoVike said:

It looks like yesterday was good for a lot of areas.  The hail scenes on the news were a bit interesting...fortunately it appeared to be mostly small hail but it did accumulate nicely.

 

Good to hear many areas got some precip yesterday.  The Laporte/Bellvue area once again missed out on the rain.  Some parts of FC did get some rain - thankfully.

I got to tell you, if you enjoy summer showers and thunderstorms the Laporte/Bellvue area is NOT where you want to live!  It can rain all around us but not here.  We moved to Bellvue 3.5 years ago and I’ve seen this happen each summer.  There are pretty views here but summer rain is very hard to come by. :weep:

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Been out here enjoying Woodland park since this past Sunday. Will be moving up to Boulder tomorrow and staying there til this coming Sunday .

it’s been a bit warmer than I expected but the lack of humidity makes it easier to deal with. 
WP seems like a nice area overall it’s on a short list of mtn towns if we ever make the move.

The people here have all seemed pretty nice so far to…

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