SPM 05-03-2021: Wild Spring Weather Across Colorado

Issue Date: Monday, May 3, 2021
Issue Time: 10:45 am MDT

Summary

Yesterday had a little bit of everything across the state of Colorado! Heavy snow was forecasted for the central mountains, and many SNOTEL stations (high elevation, mountain stations) picked up over half an inch of new liquid precipitation. Thunderstorms produced localized heavy rain, high winds, and pea-sized (0.25”) to over quarter-sized (1.00”) hail, all the way from Grand Junction to Lamar. The Boulder WFO issued flood warnings and advisories yesterday for portions of Larimer and Boulder counties around the Cameron Peak, Calwood, and East Troublesome burn areas, however there were no local reports of flooding. A tornado was even reported by a trained spotter west of Wiley, CO, which can be seen along with some of the large hail reports in the map below from the Storm Prediction Center.

Flooding was not reported on Sunday. For rainfall estimates in your area, 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 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.

Note: The 24-hour, 48-hour and 72-hour total precipitation do not contain bias corrections today due to errors in the CoCoRaHS data. This means there may be underestimations in QPE over the southwest and southeast corners of the state.