Issue Date: Monday, July 18, 2016
Issue Time: 9:25AM MDT
Plenty of deep moisture, originally being confined to northeast CO, was advected westward on Sunday resulting in scattered thunderstorm activity for many areas up and down the Northeast and Southeast Plains. One particularly strong storm moved southeast out of Wyoming during the mid-afternoon, creating up to 2 inch hail and straight-line winds gusts up to 73 mph. A brief tornado warning was hoisted for this storm, though it appeared to be “downdraft” driven by this point in its life cycle. This storm also prompted several flash flood warnings for up around 2 inches of rain per hour. However, no official flooding reports were received as of this morning. Numerous additional severe thunderstorms popped up and moved northeast (that’s right, northeast, while the storms farther north moved southeast) and caused short-term heavy rainfall up to 1.25 inches, hail up to 1.5 inches and wind gusts up to 60 mph.
Later in the evening, strong outflow boundaries from the earlier storms were pushed upslope across the South Platte River valley resulting in numerous additional storms from just east of the Urban Corridor. Short-term heavy rainfall, up to 1.5 inches per hour prompted several flash flood warnings. However, just like with the earlier storms, no flood reports were received thus far.
Although official rainfall totals (CoCoRaHS + COOP) only showed totals up to 1.25 inches, it is very likely that higher values were observed between rain gages. However, note that many rainfall estimates for the Northeast Plains were contaminated by hail and are likely much higher than what actually accumulated at the surface. For specific rainfall estimates in your area, check out our zoomable Storm Total Precipitation map below.
Lastly, wildfire activity continued across the higher terrain and western slope. The most threatening fire as of this morning is the 16,350 acre Hayden Pass fire in Fremont County which is only 30% contained thus far. Check out the #COfire thread on Twitter for real-time updates.
