SPM 05-14-2019: High Temperatures with Scattered, High-Based Afternoon Storms

Issue Date: Tuesday, May 14th, 2019
Issue Time: 9:00AM MDT

Summary:

Another gorgeous day in the books! Temperatures continued to increase with highs reaching the 80°Fs in the western and eastern plains. A couple spots along the I-25 Corridor also hit the 80°F mark. Melting was able to commence over the mountains with temperatures reaching close to 60°F and many overnight lows remaining above freezing. Scattered storms popped up during the afternoon hours over the higher terrains. Not too much rainfall being reported with the highest totals (0.2 inches) coming from SNOTEL sites in the Northern Mountains. In the adjacent plains, totals were mostly under 0.1 inches with a lot of virga. There was a slight increase in accumulation over the far eastern plains as storms slowly made it out that way, but still not much rainfall. As anticipated, there were some strong gusts as well. A gust of 56mph was reported in La Plata County. Flooding was not reported on Monday.

To see precipitation totals from yesterday, scroll down to the State Precipitation Map below. Please ignore both values in El Paso and Summit Counties, precipitation statewide was under 0.25 inches yesterday.

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.