SPM 05-24-2019: Widespread Rainfall for Western Colorado & More Snow for the Mountains

Issue Date: Friday, May 24th, 2019
Issue Time: 9:05AM MDT

Summary:

A quick moving system brought widespread showers to western Colorado yesterday. A cold front moved through during the afternoon hours, which dropped the snow line and allowed for decent accumulations above 8K feet. Vail reported another 3.5 inches of snow. For rainfall, the highest 24-hour total was over Garfield County near De Beque where 0.69 inches was recorded. Overall, widespread totals were 0.25 inches or higher. With saturated soils, rises were noted in the rivers and creeks, but no flooding was reported with levels well below Action stage. Windy conditions were also present over with the jet overhead. A gust of 60 mph was recorded over Rifle with another gust of 67 mph recorded at the Alamosa Airport ASOS. Over the eastern border, weak thunderstorms formed over the border counties during the late morning into the afternoon where up to 0.5 inches was estimated to have fallen from radar.

To see estimated precipitation totals from Thursday, scroll down to the 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.