July of 2008 was the driest since we’ve kept weather records in Colorado Springs and in the top 10 driest Julys on record in Pueblo. Most of our region was way behind on moisture. As July closed and August began, the southeastern corner of the state was in a significant state of drought according to the US Drought Monitor.

While this year isn’t going to go in the record books as being in the top 3 wettest for the Springs, we are above average by about an inch. However, it is the second wettest on record in Pueblo and most of the area has been pretty wet since mid-Spring and especially the last couple of weeks. Today’s Drought Monitor shows quite a different picture than a year ago! What a difference a year makes! 

Well, due to some family obligations I was late to the party this evening!  I saw some great shots posted to Matt’s Twitter page this evening, and it seems this was our best opportunity at lightning photography thus far this season.

I finally got home, made a dash to the park nearest my house, and started pushing the shutter button with an itchy trigger finger.  I apparently was a bit rushed, as these shots are far from stellar quality!  Soon the local park “keeper” came to tell me I needed to leave so he could lock the gates.  Much to my dismay at the time, he was simply doing his job. 

I tried to find another location quickly, but ol’ Mother Nature had soon pushed the show far enough to the southeast I wasn’t going to find a position in time.  So be it, there’s plenty more fireworks (pun intended) to come this season!  I’ll be headed to the in-laws farm in eastern CO soon for a couple weeks of “vacation”, driving combine to harvest wheat.  I’ve seen some of the best lightning displays while out there for harvest, and you can literally see for miles out there!

Enjoy the photos, as mediocre as they are…

In Colorado Springs the old record low temperature for this date was 49, set in 1971.  As of the time of this posting the Colorado Springs Airport had fallen to 48.  This got me thinking about today’s high temperatures and so I dug up a little information that you may find interesting…

The record for the coolest high temperature in Colorado Springs on this date is 63, set back in 1936, and we could tie or beat that this afternoon.  What really opened my eyes was the all time record for the coolest daytime high anytime in July, turns out we never got above 52 on July 29th in 1915!

For Pueblo the record coolest high temperature for today is 67, which was set in 1925.  The all time coolest July afternoon occured on July 11th of 1895 when 58 degrees was all we could muster.

If that stuff didn’t catch your attention, how about the snow on A-Basin this morning!

I’m wiped…been tracking severe storms for 3 days straight…actually it started last week when I was here until 3AM on Tuesday with those overnight storms…but this is going to be abbreviated…

Storms fired up on the higher terrain of the Pikes Peak region around noon and continued southeast across the plains well into the evening. Look at all of the severe weather reports we got!:

Obviously the story of the day was the widespread hail and hail damage in Pueblo…it’ll be interesting to see what the dollar amount of the claims ends up being and if it sets a record. At one point during the 2pm hour we had three seperate supercells in/around/moving in to the Springs and Pueblo metro areas at the same time! That is a rare occurence indeed. We tracked a funnel cloud over Woodland Park live on the air with the Neighborhood Weather Network camera on Gold Hill, tracked the large hail swaths with Hail Vision in Pueblo, and had scud clouds over Colorado Springs that were being reported as funnels…

One of the interesting things about the hail today was the shapes of some of it. These stones from Joseph show what almost look like the balls from “the ball and chain” weapon of the dark ages. The spikes you see can be attributed to the rapid rate of freeze that the water underwent…an indication of how cold it was aloft and how fast the updraft carried these stones through and above the freezing line.

Late afternoon had 5 or 6 distinct supercells south of Highway 50, one of which produced this tornado outside of Pritchett a little before 5pm. It was on the ground for about 3 minutes and thankfully produced no reports of damage. Thanks to Laura Ming for sharing her photos with us! A little after 6pm, through about 6:30, several tornado reports from south of Limon in Lincoln County came in. On radar, this storm appeared most likely to produce straight-line wind near 70mph and there is some downed power lines and tree branches in this area, but it will be interesting to see if the NWS finds evidence of a tornado in this region when they conduct a damage survey on Thursday. Doesn’t really matter I guess, if its wind and causes damage, who cares if its rotating or straight-line?

This storm did produce a pretty significant outflow boundary that developed some new storms over Pueblo (photo below left) in the early evening and made for some nice shelf cloud looking shots, but you can also see a newly forming base on the right side of the picture. It looks somewhat similar to the storm over Avondale earlier in the day that had a ragged wall cloud underneath it. What a crazy day…I’m ready for quiet weather!

We had a few storms turn severe this evening producing hail larger than an inch in diameter and gusty winds, but one of the biggest threats with storms tonight was heavy rain and slow moving storms. The combination produced flooding in several of our mountain communities. A flood advisory was issued in Fremont County for storms near Canon City that dropped close to 3inches per hour in places.

The worst of what we saw (as of 7:20pm) was near La Veta Pass where heavy rain produced mudslides along and near the west side of La Veta Pass on US Hwy 160. This closed the highway at La Veta Pass.
This seems to be a common story lately. I was just in Deckers this week covering mudslides along Hwy 67 just south of Deckers. Because of heavy rain and debris, Horse Creek was rerouted into people’s front yards and onto Hwy 67.

I’ve been monitoring the Atlantic for some tropical storm development, but activity there is still pretty quiet. I suppose we can thank the developing El Nino in the Pacific for that as El Nino years tend to lend themselves to fairly quiet hurricane seasons. Having said that, our slow start to this hurricane season and the El Nino do not mean we’re in the clear. Read what this article from the Associated Press has to say:

HOUSTON - The 2009 hurricane season has been off to a slow start, but experts say the real activity usually doesn’t begin until August.

Even though the first Atlantic named storm usually forms by July 10, the early season lull doesn’t necessarily mean a weak overall season.

Thursday was the one-year anniversary of Hurricane Dolly, which when it struck South Texas became the Rio Grande Valley’s most destructive storm in four decades.

A maturing El Nino in the Pacific Ocean, which tends to depress storm activity by 20 to 40 percent, makes the outlook for the rest of the season look promising.

But forecasters say it’s no time to relax and El Nino years can still produce destructive storms.

The 2004 season didn’t get its first storm until Hurricane Alex began developing on July 31. After Alex, the season finished with 15 storms and six major hurricanes, including Hurricane Ivan.

One of the three most-intense storms at a U.S. landfall, Hurricane Andrew, developed during an El Nino in 1992.

Some of the most famed storms to strike Texas and Louisiana have come during an El Nino, including the great storm of 1900, said Jill Hasling, president of Houston’s Weather Research Center.

“There might be fewer storms during an El Nino,” she told the Houston Chronicle for its Thursday editions. “But it only takes one.”

Ten tropical storms or hurricanes develop during an average Atlantic season, but since 1995 the Atlantic has seen an upswing in activity. Most scientists attribute that to a long-term natural pattern.

Given this season’s slow start and the onset of El Nino, most seasonal forecasters now say about 10 named storms will form, one of the lowest totals of the past 15 years.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

The Pikes Peak Hill Climb is tomorrow (Sunday). And while Colorado Springs and Pueblo will be in the 80s and 90s, weather will be much different on the Peak. Anything can happen on Pikes Peak. Last year some of our reporters said it was so hot that the tires on the cars were having issues gripping to the surface of the road which is what resulted in some of the slide-offs. There have been other years where there is several inches of ice on the roads and they had to shorten the course. I went up to Pikes Peak earlier in the week and did a full report on Pikes Peak Hill Climb Weather. You can check it out by clicking here.  Have Fun and Be Safe!

As you can see from the graphic above, more moisture has been headed towards the I-25 corridor this morning. Colorado Springs had dewpoints in the low 50s at around 9:30. Compare that to dewpoints in the low 40s yesterday. As a result, we’ve been seeing skies cloud up this morning in several spots.

The air is noticeably drier the further west you get from I-25. Skies were mostly clear and blue out that way this morning.

The increased moisture lends itself to an increased chance of severe weather. We’ll see what develops this afternoon!

This past week, NOAA scientists announced the arrival of El Niño. (And thanks to Chris Farley, I will forever be reminded of the SNL skit in which he explained that El Nino is Spanish for….”The Nino.”) So what is El Nino and what does it mean for the months ahead?

Simply put, El Nino is a climate phenomenon that occurs on average every 2 to 5 years and lasts about a year. It can influence global weather, ocean conditions and marine fisheries thanks to a periodic warming of central and eastern tropical Pacific waters.

As of July 1, sea surface temperatures along the equatorial Eastern Pacific were at least one degree above average — a sign of El Niño.

(Credit: NOAA)

During an El Niño event, the trade winds across the tropical Pacific Ocean relax, allowing a warm pool of water to head to the east. The normally cool water located off the South American coast is replaced by the much warmer waters. This leads to the warmer than normal anomalies shown above. Rainfall follows the warm water eastward, with associated flooding in Peru and drought in the normally wet regions of Indonesia and Australia. Effects from an El Nino event can be felt as far away as here in Colorado. 

In the graphic above, you see that wetter weather tends to develop across the southern U.S. with mainly dry conditions for the Midwest and warmer than usual temperatures for the northern states.

These effects are most obvious in the winter. That is actually where the name “El Nino” has its origin. El Niño means “The Little Boy” or “Christ Child” in Spanish. This name was chosen based on the time of year in which the warm waters developed off the South American coast. El Niño was originally recognized by fishermen off the coast of South America in the 1600s.

NOAA expects this current El Niño to continue developing during the next several months, with further strengthening possible. The event is expected to last through winter 2009-10. That would typically mean an increase in monsoonal moisture for the remainder of the summer, bringing us more storms in Colorado. As we hit the winter,  El Nino usually means above normal snowfall totals for the Southwest and Central Mountains with a milder than normal winter for the Eastern Plains. If this El Nino holds strong through the spring, we could expect an increase in precipitation. We’ll see what happens!

Missed the peak color in the Woodland Park shot, but it was still pretty.  Otherwise a picture is worth a thousand words so here you go…