SPM 06-13-2019: Weak Thunderstorms for the Southeast Mountains and High Water over Southwest Colorado

Issue Date: Thursday, June 13th, 2019
Issue Time: 10:00AM MDT

Summary:

Under a drier air mass and thermal ridge, Colorado had another quiet day on the rainfall and thunderstorm front. The best moisture to work with for another round afternoon storms was over southeastern Colorado. Storms kicked off over the southern Front Range and Southeast Mountains with the diurnal flow. With northwest storm motion, they moved into the adjacent plains fairly quickly. Rain rates were greatest over Huerfano County where radar estimated isolated totals up to 0.5 inches. Most storms produced less than 0.1 inches with up to 0.25 inches in their cores.

Once again, the main story was melting and minor flooding along several rivers over the San Juan Mountains and San Luis Valley. No new flooding reports were available as of this morning, but the Flood Warnings and Watches continue for the region along with the upper Arkansas River. Expecting most rivers in these areas to continue to slowly increase through this weekend. For the latest, see today’s FTB post.

A nice way to track the rivers is using the AHPS gage network. Here is a list of the current gages at Action or the Minor flooding stage (as of this morning):

Tomichi Creek at Gunnison
Mancos River near Mancos
La Plata River above Hesperus
Animas River above Cedar Hill
Navajo River near Chromo
Rio Grande near Del Norte – Flood Warning with the gage at Minor flooding
Rio Grande at Alamosa
Arkansas River at Salida
Arkansas River at Wellsville
Arkansas River at Parkdale
Arkansas River at Canon City
Arkansas River at Avondale (elevated due to dam releases from Monday)

To see estimated precipitation totals over your neighborhood on Wednesday, 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.