It’s been a nice week with some cooler temperatures and a decent amount of rain across the state. Most recently, Tuesday delivered some intense rains to much of the metro area resulting in some moderate street flooding as I’m sure you’ve seen on social.
Wednesday night is ending with a bang along the northern Urban Corridor with flash flooding and hail occurring over the Cameron Peak burn scar and other large storms around Greeley, Loveland and Longmont. Boulder got smacked with a strong storm before midnight, too.
This is all part of a trend I was watching last week. Ample monsoon moisture with favorable winds and energy embedded within the upper air has led to these daily storms. It’s been nice but the storms have been Colorado strong at times with hails and strong winds. Even a tornado was reported in eastern Colorado Tuesday.
Heading into Thursday, we have even more – notably more – moisture to work with and added lift from a passing cold front. That means potentially lots of rain on an already saturated ground and much cooler temperatures.
We’ve had a lot of rain recently. Check out how much rain we’ve gotten in the last 7 days and what that’s like compared to normal.
Just in the last week, a good chunk of the state has seen a half in to two inches of rain. That’s much more than normal during the same time period. For all of July, we’ve faired pretty well.
We should see some drought improvements as we head in the next couple of weeks. So, with all of this rain already and potentially lots more to come….
Let’s jump into the Flash Flood threat.
Flash flooding will be possible in many areas of Colorado on Thursday. Keep in mind river levels could rise fast, poor drainage areas will have issues, burn scars are likely to have issues on Thursday and Friday and it could be impactful at times.
We’re not alone though, this monsoon push will impacts all of the Four Corners region. Honestly, other than the flood threat, this is good news for the ongoing drought.
NW flow is set up over our region and there will be several waves of energy that pulse through now through Friday. Combined with the monsoon moisture in place, we’re going to have multiple rounds of moderate to heavy rain. There’s just enough energy in the atmosphere to get some damaging winds and small hail thrown in the mix too so don’t be shocked by those.
The Storm Prediction Center has excessive flood threat over Colorado for both Thursday and Friday.
South central and SE Colorado are set to get moderate flooding rains Thursday and Friday. Thursday will bring the highest flood threat to much of the Urban Corridor. By Saturday, rain totals will have stacked up pretty great – especially across SoCo.
Rain totals through Saturday
The southern half of Colorado is in for 1-3″ of rain over the next few days. The northern half will be up for a half in to 1″ of rain but with thunderstorms, a lot more could fall in a short amount of time to keep your guard up. The Front Range mountains and Foothills will also have high totals around 1-2″.
After this, high pressure begins to move in and will dry us out a bit and warm us back up into the 90s. Speaking of temps…Thursday and Friday, highs along the Urban Corridor will only be in the 70s and low 80s if that. The mountains will be rather cool as well.
These temperatures sure will feel nice for the middle of summer. Kind of a “weird” summer, huh?
~ Andy
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