SPM 08-08-2020: A Lone Storm for Baca County

Issue Date: Saturday, August 8th, 2020
Issue Time: 10:25AM MDT

Summary:

It stayed hot and dry for most of Colorado yesterday, but a lone thunderstorm moved through Baca County in far southeast Colorado and dropped the state’s only measurable rainfall. This isolated thunderstorm is visible on the true color satellite imagery last evening (see below), which shows storms largely stayed south of Colorado. QPE rain totals indicate up to 1.5 inches fell over Baca County, but limited coverage of rain gauges make this high total difficult to verify. The highest rain gauge total of 0.21 inches was submitted by a CoCoRaHS observer near Springfield. No flood or heavy rain reports were submitted near this storm. Check out the QPE map to see how isolated rain accumulation was from this storm.

Unfortunately, dry southwesterly winds allowed the Pine Gulch Fire to grow once again. As of 11:30AM MDT yesterday, the fire was at 13,680 acres, but the fire has continued to grow since. The fire is easily identifiable on the satellite imagery yesterday (see image below), which is causing smoke to stream northeast over the state. Today will be similar to yesterday, so please pay attention to emergency management if you live near the area.

To see rain estimates near your location over the last 24, 48, or 72 hours, check out our State Precipitation Map below.

Click Here For Map Overview

The map below shows radar-estimated, rainfall gage-adjusted Quantitative Precipitation Estimates (QPE) across Colorado. The map is updated daily during the operational season (May 1 – Sep 30) by 11AM. The following six layers are currently available: 24-hour, 48-hour and 72-hour total precipitation, as well as maximum 1-hour, 2-hour and 6-hour precipitation over the past 24 hour period (to estimate where flash flooding may have occurred). The 24-hour, 48-hour and 72-hour total precipitation contain bias corrections that are not disaggregated into the hourly estimates, so there will likely be some differences. The accumulation ending time is 7AM of the date shown in the bottom right corner. Also shown optionally are vulnerable fire burn areas (post 2012), which are updated throughout the season to include new, vulnerable burn areas. The home button in the top left corner resets the map to the original zoom.