By John McGinley

Despite a couple of rainy days conditions improved over the Front Range helping the recovery effort from the devastating floods of a week ago. Most rivers and streams receded and workers began to assess the damage and determine the best course of action for repairing critical canyon roads. Two frontal systems brought lines of thunderstorms to the area last Wednesday and again Sunday. The Sunday-Monday storm lowered the snow level to about 10000ft bringing a definite fall flavor to the weather. The storms moved rapidly to the east preventing rain of long duration. Rainfall amounts increased as one went east. We had 0.3 to 0.4 inches in Ned but over an inch fell in the eastern parts of the county. Fortunately this rain did not generate any new significant flooding. The rain brought our local total for the month to 8.16 inches, nearly five times normal. High temperatures were near normal ranging from the mid 40s to 70. We hit our coldest day of the summer on Friday as the low temperature hit feezing. As the Sunday storm moved out over the plains strong northwesterly winds brought gusts to 50mph over the Peak-to-Peak region.

Day Date  High Low Precip  Comments

Wed  Sep 18  69 45 0.15L  Line of thunderstorms

Thu  Sep 19  55 41

Fri Sep 20  64 32

Sat Sep 21  70 40

Sun      Sep 22  62 41 0.21L  Line of thunderstorms

Mon Sep 23  47 38 0.15L  Gusts to 50mph…mtn snow

Tues Sep 24  65 43

Forecast

This week we see the end of September and the beginning of October. October has an average high temperature of 54F with a low of 28F. October is drier than September with 1.25 inches of precipitation likely. This usually includes 12 inches of snow. October brings windy conditions with 11 days over 40mph and 3 days over 60mph.

Last week we totally missed the precipitation on Sunday and Monday. Hopefully the models will do better this week. We will start with another storm moving in on Friday with rain possibly changing to snow and much cooler temperatures. We may see our first measurable snow along the Peak-to-Peak but probably less than an inch. After that we go into a warming and windy trend until Wednesday when another disturbance will bring some upslope and some showers.

Thursday-Sep26: Increasing clouds and windy with highs in the mid 60s after lows in the upper 30s.

Friday-Sep 27: Cloudy with light rain through the day changing to snow by evening. Not much accumulation. Highs in the low 50s with lows in the upper 20s by midnight.

Saturday- Sep28: Fair and warmer with highs the mid 50s after lows in the upper 20s.

Sunday-Sep 29: Fair and warmer with highs in the low 60s after lows in the upper 30s. Gusty winds late

Monday-Sep 30: Fair and warmer again with highs in the mid 60s after lows in the upper30s. Gusty winds.

Tuesday-Oct 1: Increasing clouds and windy with highs in the low 60s with lows in the low 40s. Cold front late.

Wednesday-Sep 25: Cloudy to partly cloudy with showers late. Highs in the upper 50s with lows in the upper 30s.