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2021 Monsoon part 2 on it's way today and thru the week.  I am cautiously optimistic that we won't have the insane repeat of last years conditions.  The two "long duration" fires, Muddy Creek and Morgan Creek, are not rapidly growing.  Still a lot of fire season to go, but at least we are getting decent monsoons this year.

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A tragic day of flooding yesterday on Hwy 14 along the Poudre River, in the Cameron Peak burn scar.  This from the Larimer County Sherriff's Facebook page:

 

I just returned from the Poudre Canyon flood incident that originated around Black Hollow Road, just west of Rustic earlier tonight.

A resident from Black Hollow Road described a fairly typical rain coming down just prior to the flooding, which came down Black Hollow Creek. He said that the washing of soil and trees came as a complete surprise. We don’t have a definitive count, but it appears several structures along Black Hollow Road were damaged or destroyed. We do know that some residents did get out from that neighborhood safely.
We are working from reports of three unaccounted for persons from that area. We have located one deceased victim in the area, but were unable to recover the body tonight. Those operations will be resume tomorrow morning. We also believe there may be two more people still missing from today’s flooding.
A short distance west of Black Hollow Road, a significant amount of debris washed across Hwy 14, blocking the road. CDOT is working to remove that debris.
I personally witnessed significant debris and damage in the area, caused by downed trees, damaged and destroyed homes and mudflow in the area.
During this event, we evacuated the canyon- not knowing how this debris might impact persons and property downstream. Mandatory evacuations were lifted later in the evening. However, forecasts for Wednesday include the possibility for similar weather in coming days. The risk of debris flow damage remains and we caution any resident or visitors the canyon to remain vigilant.
Our deepest sympathy goes out to the yet unidentified victim of this flooding and their family along with any other potential victims yet to be located.
We cannot speak to the status of Hwy 14 as it falls under the authority of CDOT. However, we expect some level of travel restrictions as we resume recovery operations tomorrow.
I want to thank all of the wonderful residents and visitors of the Poudre Canyon for their cooperation. I also want to thank all of the responders who have been and continue to be integral in our response to this tragic event. Those responders are absolutely amazing people!!!
Our office will report more information as the details become more readily available.
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Higher monsoon rainfall has been increasing as of lately, with some areas of Arizona and New Meixco, and Rocky Mtn National Park being above normal precipitation for this month up to this date. It seems that rainfall will be widespread in the next 2 days, for much of the same areas already described.

6BpVltZ.jpg

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Loveland was up to 94-99 degrees today, effectively the hottest recent day. South Dakota was up to 109 degrees east of Rapid City. Many areas of the central states now have heat advisories. The wildfire smoke is in many areas of the country. Smoke may still be affecting surface air quality here, but I'm not quite sure. Good news coming up! The models have substantial rainfall for the West for the weekend. Friday should become rainy for the Colorado mountains, and it should spread eastward. A monsoon moisture surge will combine with a weak cold front or maybe just some weakness in the upper level ridge.

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Albuquerque has had two or three flash flood warnings this July. Something like 0.02" at the airport those days, with 3-5 inches elsewhere in the city. Just ridiculously localized events.

Drought has really been getting it's ass kicked though. National pattern this month has some resemblance to July 2013, so not too surprising.

I'm leaning toward an early peaking very weak La Nina Modoki this winter, with the North Pacific very warm basin wide and a relatively cool eastern Atlantic. There are a lot of ways to match what the CFS shows for the winter sea surface temperatures, but I think 2016 + 1960 or 1967, blended with more recent years is probably the it will go. Something like a blend of 1960-61, 1967-68, 2011-12, 2012-13, 2016-17, 2020-21 gets you the right PDO/AMO/Solar/Modoki/low sea ice configuration at about the right ENSO strength. Still a lot of refining to do on my end though.

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My area has cooled off a lot. Wednesday it was 98 degrees. Yesterday was up near 90 degrees, and it cooled down so slowly, it might have been upper 70's at midnight. This afternoon we were 90 with a dew point of 60, but now around 73 degrees. It looks like I am about to get two rain showers colliding over me. I hope the people in the canyons are OK. 

update: moderate rain and several rumbles of thunder are here now.

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2 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

Flash flood emergency for the Miller Fork and North Fork of the Big Thompson, due to heavy rain on burn scars. Glen Haven and Drake are in some trouble. These are some of the areas hit hardest in 2013. :(

Yup and that is my neighborhood (The Retreat).  We have been having burn scar flooding periodically since July 4th. We have already lost two roads in the neighborhood from crazy washout. Today was the roughest though.  Several hours of rain today but it has stopped for now.  The North Fork is fine but pretty full. It gets dicey where the Miller Fork meets it.  Coal black water...

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3 hours ago, ValpoVike said:

Yup and that is my neighborhood (The Retreat).  We have been having burn scar flooding periodically since July 4th. We have already lost two roads in the neighborhood from crazy washout. Today was the roughest though.  Several hours of rain today but it has stopped for now.  The North Fork is fine but pretty full. It gets dicey where the Miller Fork meets it.  Coal black water...

Dang, good luck. Meanwhile here we’ve had a trace and Centennial Airport has had a whopping 0.01”. 

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Lots of rain just SE of Pueblo

BULLETIN - EAS ACTIVATION REQUESTED
Flash Flood Warning
National Weather Service Pueblo CO
243 AM MDT Sun Aug 1 2021

The National Weather Service in Pueblo has issued a

* Flash Flood Warning for...
  A large portion of central and northern Pueblo County in
  southeastern Colorado...

* Until 900 AM MDT Sunday.

* At 243 AM MDT, moderate to locally heavy rain continues across the
  warning area. Between 3 and 5 inches of rain have already fallen
  from earlier shower and thunderstorm activity. Additional rainfall
  amounts of 0.5 to 1.5 inches are possible in the warned area, as
  rain continues through the morning hours. Flash flooding is
  ongoing and is expected to continue through the morning hours.

  HAZARD...Flash flooding caused by heavy rain.

  SOURCE...Reports of roads washed out with upwards of 4 feet of
           standing water, flooded underpasses, and other
           significant flooding from an Off-Duty National Weather
           Service Meteorologist, trained weather spotters, and
           law enforcement.

  IMPACT...Flash flooding of small creeks and streams, urban
           areas, highways, streets and underpasses as well as
           other poor drainage and low-lying areas.

* Some locations that will experience flash flooding include...
  Pueblo, Blende, Avondale, Salt Creek and Pueblo Depot.

This includes the following streams and drainages...
  Salt Creek, Chico Creek, Blue Ribbon Creek, Boggs Creek, Dry
  Creek, Greenhorn Creek, Wild Horse Creek, Fourmile Creek, Burnt
  Creek, Sixmile Creek, Edson Arroyo, Fountain Creek, Williams
  Creek, Thomkins Arroyo, Black Squirrel Creek, Wolf Arroyo, Saint
  Charles River, Tom Hollow, Haynes Creek, Arkansas River and Andy
  Creek.
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My place had rain only on Friday. Parts of Fort Collins, Loveland, and other places got over 1.0" of rain on Friday, so that's not too bad. Just one good day of rain in July does not make the grass get a lot greener. Parts of the West have done much better on the monsoon precipitation recently! As for our area, the wildfire smoke just seems to keep coming back, particularly yesterday and today. For me, my visibility of the mountains was limited to the foothills less than 10 miles away.

FMfC6jU.jpg

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1 hour ago, BuffaloWeather said:

Heading out west to Wyoming, Idaho, and Montana Aug 18-28. Anyone know what the smoke will look like when I am there or too early? 

It's way too early to tell based on smoke forecasts, but given that Idaho and Montana have a lot of wildfires currently ongoing....I would expect those areas to be inundated.  Wyoming would likely have more dependency on the smoke impacts from wildfires in neighboring states.

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10 minutes ago, ValpoVike said:

It's way too early to tell based on smoke forecasts, but given that Idaho and Montana have a lot of wildfires currently ongoing....I would expect those areas to be inundated.  Wyoming would likely have more dependency on the smoke impacts from wildfires in neighboring states.

I've been checking the webcams up in glacier. It seems some places are clear and others pretty smokey. This is an every summer thing now adays out west so tough to beat it. 

https://www.nps.gov/glac/learn/photosmultimedia/webcams.htm

The Tetons look pretty clear

https://www.nps.gov/subjects/air/webcams.htm?site=grte

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Well, in late August climatologically you often get the first cold fronts of the season coming down from Canada into the Northern Rockies on north to northwest winds. The 6-10 day forecast hints at that. At the same time, climatologically we're getting into the worst of fire season, and fires don't stop at the Canadian border. So while you have a smaller chance of being affected by the CA and OR fires, those in WA, BC and Alberta might be more likely to be in play. Good luck. I'm so tired of not being able to see the stars or the mountains on "clear" days from Denver.

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Fairly optimistic for a wet Fall-Spring for parts of the West with the PDO currently trending positive (rapidly cooling SSTs east of Japan). My research shows Nino 1.2 leads PDO base state changes if it is "counter" the PDO base state heading into the cold season. Nino 1.2 has been pretty warm. We'll see. This is pretty similar to how the PDO behaved in late 2013 though from the looks of it.

Image

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It looks like the forest fire crud will be back tomorrow, according to the HRRR-smoke. As for me, improvements in visibility started on Thursday night. From Friday to today. we've had nicer blue skies, and some clouds at times. Also, temperatures have not been not scorching. It would be really nice to see some days with a high of 85 and a low of 50-55 though. The cold front/monsoon surge combo should be Thursday-Friday with heavier rain only in the mountains. So that's kind of a bummer, I thought maybe some higher rainfall might even be in here on Wednesday or Thursday, but that should be kind of wrong.

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It's hard to be ungrateful for additional monsoonal moisture, but we've had enough up here.  This photo is of Black Creek Road in our neighborhood.  It is one of two county owned roads in the neighborhood, and Larimer has rebuilt it twice since July 4th.  This is it's current state which is amazing and frankly hard to believe considering that most of the series of floods have been caused by events of an inch or less of rain.  There are homes on this road, so not just a minor nuisance.

238013049_4298377393542742_4876728504685073652_n.jpg

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