Issue Date: Friday, July 3rd, 2020
Issue Time: 10:40AM MDT

Summary:

Storms fired along a moisture boundary over the eastern plains yesterday. It was a battle between instability/moisture and the developing trough, which was mixing the severe weather ingredients eastward. Higher moisture remained over the Northeast Plains just to the north of the surface low. Storms were barely moving, so they produced some heavy rainfall as well as damaging hail. As far as storm reports, there were several tornadoes reported over Washington and Kit Carson County. These were likely weak landspouts as upper dynamics were not great for tornado formation. Additionally, storm chasers reported 2.75 inch hail (baseball size) over Washington County! I can only image the damage that did to crops and property.

The heavy rainfall cores were rather small in size, but some impressive rainfall totals came out of the storms. The COAGMET station near Joes, CO recorded 1.23 inches and another nearby WxUnderground station recorded 0.71 inches. So, the QPE estimates of rainfall over southwest Yuma County are likely overestimated below. Twitter videos and CDOT cams reported some minor flooding in fields and parking lots near Burlington. MetStorm Live shows 2.5 inches of QPE over Burlington, CO. A CoCoRaHS in town recorded 1.9 inches over the same area, so the QPE estimates are likely high over this area as well. Additionally, the COAGMET station in Burlington recorded 0.66 inches in an area that is estimated at 1.5 inches. The Burlington Carson County Airport recorded 3.38 inches for the 24-hour period just south of town, which is likely driving the QPE for MetStorm. There were several hail reports in the area, so I’m wondering if this gage wasn’t contaminated by it? I would have expected a lot more flooding if that was the case as well. QPE from AHPS has between 1.5 and 2.0 inches in this same area and MRMS has about 3 inches. Overall, I think these numbers are bit high after looking at observations, so take the QPE below with a grain of salt.

For precipitation estimates in your neighborhood over the last 24 to 72-hours, scroll down to the State Precipitation Map below.

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Issue Date: Thursday, July 2nd, 2020
Issue Time: 9:45AM MDT

Summary:

Absolutely gorgeous summer day on Wednesday as temperatures started to rise behind the trough. Below is the satellite imagery for the state at 3PM (source: College of DuPage) – crystal clear conditions with a few fair-weather cumulus over the mountains. Isolated storms may have produced trace amounts of rain (sprinkles, really), but the more likely scenario is just some cloud cover. Fog rolled into the easterly plains overnight with southeasterly surface flow increasing surface moisture. This moisture plume can be seen over Kansas working its way east below. Burlington reported ¼ mile visibility this morning around 5AM. The foggy conditions are continuing to improve with a little day time heating and mixing.

Below is the new drought map that came out this morning, and it is valid as of June 30 (Tuesday). This is the first map with D4 (Exceptional Drought) conditions, which are present over Baca County. The D4 category was last seen in February of 2019 after a dry WY 2018. Unfortunately, rainfall this afternoon will do little to help the worsening situation over the eastern plains. Baca County is about 3 – 3.75 inches below normal precipitation over the last 3 months. The D3 (Extreme Drought) area has also expanded over the Southeast Slope as well. Northern Colorado continues to remain the only area without drought conditions.

For precipitation estimates in your neighborhood over the last 72-hours, scroll down to the State Precipitation Map below.

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Issue Date: Wednesday, July 1st, 2020
Issue Time: 9:45AM MDT

Summary:

Light rainfall developed along the jet in a north/south oriented band on Monday night, so the Front Range started the morning with some brief showers. Storms generally produced between 0.10 (Boulder) and 0.32 inches (Fort Collins) along with some graupel due to the colder temperatures behind the front. This may have inflated some of the totals in the gages, but these amounts seem reasonable and replicated at more than one site. Light snow was also reported earlier in the morning/Monday night at the highest elevations along this same band. The eastward moving band of showers lifted north with the jet by midday. Additional scattered afternoon storms developed over the Palmer Ridge and expanded in coverage as the moved in the Northeast Plains where a little better moisture remained. Totals just under 0.50 inches were reported in the storm cores. A brief storm also popped up over Morgan County, but observations in the area indicate very little rainfall reached the ground. Overnight lows got chilly with Alamosa dropping to 30F – that is a new daily record low and ties the all time monthly (July) record. Lows were only forecast to drop to 38F.

For precipitation estimates in your neighborhood over the last 24 to 72-hours, scroll down to the State Precipitation Map below.

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Issue Date: Tuesday, June 30th, 2020
Issue Time: 9:50AM MDT

Summary:

High fire danger across the state on Monday as a vigorous Low deepened over Idaho. This brought dry southwesterly flow to the state as the jet moved in from the east. Outside of some weak showers over the northwest corner of the state, it was hot, dry day. Those storms produced little rainfall, so there isn’t a trace of them on the map below. The Rifle Gap Reservoir gage recorded 0.05 inches during the afternoon. A bit of more measurable rain occurred along the jet behind the cold front. That was the feature found over the mountains this morning in today’s FTB. Showers formed in a north to south line along the jet starting over western Colorado around 2AM. As it progressed eastward, CoCoRaHS recorded between 0.20 and 0.33 inches over the Northwest Slope and Central/Northern Mountains, which are some pretty decent accumulations for the feature. AHPS indicates between 0.10 and 0.25 inches of rain accumulated at the surface. Overnight temperatures were also a lot cooler. Lower elevations behind the front fell into the 40Fs with temperatures near or at freezing in the reporting NWS/RAWS stations over the mountains. There were also no new mountain fires to report as of this morning, which is always a good thing on a Red Flag Warning day.

For precipitation estimates in your neighborhood over the last 24 to 72-hours, scroll down to the State Precipitation Map below.

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