Saturday, August 09, 2008

20080808 Wx Recap

So I ask for one day off this week, one day! And sure, it was nice to go out to dinner with my old landlords and roomies, but what a party I missed!

Okay, so when I say I asked for the day off, I meant from the flood center. I worked my other job all day yesterday (8AM to 6PM). As I was leaving the office down at Inverness, I noticed that the cap had broken. It had been hot and muggy all day and the 750-500mb temps were just a little too warm to get things lifting. There had been storms over the mountains all day, but one was now sitting over the foothills and looking rather tenacious.

I proceeded to my old house to meet my old roomie and carpool up to the north side of town for dinner. I did a quick check of the radar and saw a nice outflow boundary coming from convection to the north, stretching from the foothills past Greeley. It was headed in a general southward direction and I had a feeling it might interact with the storm just exiting the foothills.

While waiting to be seated at dinner in Westminster (104th/US 36), the outflow came through, blowing leaves into people's margaritas.

While I was enjoying dinner, apparently, all hell broke loose. The storm came off the foothills right into Denver, followed by the outflow boundary which set it off like TNT. The big problem was that the storm didn't really move. It just fed off of the available moisture and sat over Denver county, prompting flash flood warnings.

I didn't know this until checking the radar after leaving dinner. It would have been a fun night to be at the flood center. I called the new guy, Nick, anyway, to see how his first day (alone) went. Talk about being thrown into the fire. He told me some places in Aurora had already reported 2.5"+. I was shocked!

Heading back down into Denver, highway marquis warned of standing water on the freeway near Alameda, so we opted to take Spear through town. Cherry Creek was over its banks and had risen up the concrete walls abutting Spear. I couldn't believe how much water was flowing through it!

Aside from a bit of lightning, the storms had moved off to the east by this point and it was no longer raining.

Here is a time sensitive radar loop. (Should be valid through 8/12)

KFTG BREF

NWS Rainfall totals.

Dann.

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