Thanks for joining us here on 9 News Plus.
I'm Nine News bureaus, Chris Bianchi.
I want to take a look back at just the
enormous amount of rainfall thae
got over the course of this past week.
I don't have to tell you that it
rained a lot, but want to put
this in a little bit of a conte,
just how much water we got and
does this compare to the 2013 fd
or not where you get into?
A lot of this coming up here
over the next few minutes,
but First things first,
I want to show you the basic stat here.
Denver.
This is officially at Denver International
Airport where he picked about 42
inches worth of rainfall last w.
You add in the little bit of ran
that we got over the weekend
and also here this morning,
we're up to 4.65 inches worth
of rainfall so far this month.
Basically all of that has come
within the last five days.
That is a stunning.
Amount of rainfall.
On average,
May is our wettest month of the year.
In Denver,
we have more than doubled the fl
month of May rainfall and we're
barely halfway through the mont.
We're actually technically not exactly
halfway through the month yet.
This is already our 11th wetest
May on record.
We're going to climb into the
top ten probably later today and
we've got a basically a lock on
a top five wetest May on record
for us and again May on average.
Is Denver's wettest month of the year?
So just a ton of rainfall.
But let's get a bit more specifs
about what we saw just last wee.
Now,
last week we got about 4.4 inchs
worth of rainfall in those three days
between Wednesday, Thursday and Friday.
Almost all that coming on Thursy
and Thursday specifically,
was our eighth wettest day of the year.
What a stay ever recorded in De,
by the way.
Records in Denver go back 151 y.
That is a long,
long time and we've picked up
more rain than just other than
seven other days on on record.
Again, 8th whatest day of the y,
what I say on record in Denver t
last Thursday and that basically
doubled the old record for the y
of 1.55 inches that was previouy
set back in 1990s.
Now how about this for a littlet
of comparison you compare this .
Seattle Of course we all know
Seattle for it's very soggy cli.
Pacific Northwest, fun fact.
Also by the way,
Seattle yesterday got to 89 deg.
That's another story.
But Denver last week in about 42
hours picked up more rain than
Seattle has seen since April the
1st combined.
So.
Just again putting this
in a bit more context,
a bit more perspective,
just the amount of water we've .
Also worth noting that the airpt
number that what we saw DIA sliy
lower than what most of the cits
seen. Most of the city has seen about
five 5 1/2 inches worth of rain.
The airport a little bit lower
than that West side of town.
I will note you got out by Golden Boulder
and those numbers about 3 1/2, four inches.
So DIA number probably in the middle,
middle, low side of things but.
Whatever, you get the idea here.
It's no matter exactly how you chalk it up.
A lot of water. All right.
This to me is probably the best
way to kind of compare things.
DIA last week picked up 4.4
inches worth of rainfall,
as mentioned 42 hour rainfall
total in an A full calendar yea.
This is again, full year.
This includes rain, sleet, snow,
melted snow, equivalent this.
Was about 1/3 of what Denver typically
gets in a full year And again,
that came in less than two days, in 42 hours.
Again, slightly less than two d.
Denver saw about a third of its typical
annual annual rainfall and you compare that
to what you see over a full counter year.
Hey, you know what?
This more than made-up for
our deficit that we had.
We had a big, pretty big year to
date deficit until last Wednesd,
Thursday, Friday.
We blew that out of the water and then some.
Now to be this is probably what
stands out more than anything e.
To all of you out there.
You go back to last Tuesday and
with the exception of a few hous
late on Friday night and Saturdy
morning might remember we had se
peaks of sun late on Friday once
rain stopped and then on Saturdy
morning we also had some peaks f
sunshine when you first woken up
on Saturday morning around 6-7 .
Other than that, other than that we've had.
Cloudy skies here in Denver.
So 135 hours of basically it's
not exact as I mentioned Friday
night sorry morning exception.
We've basically been fully cloudy for
135 consecutive hours here in Dr
that here folks and even with My
being our cloudiest month of the year
on average that basically neverr
happens here along the Front Rae
basically never ever happens that we're.
Constantly cloudy for
about six straight days.
That's where we're at at this p.
And by the way,
it's still cloudy.
So I'm looking outside our windw
here at Spirit Logan right now,
so that numbers probably get
extended by a few more hours.
We should get some Peeks of Sun
later today and then tomorrow we
should end the streak entirely.
But Speaking of the forecast,
you look at the forecast and we're going to
be adding some of those rainfall totals.
We're probably,
it looks like on Thursday, Frid,
maybe adding another half inch,
maybe an inch of rainfall.
Here in Denver this is not even
close to what we saw last week,
but Wednesday night,
Thursday and Friday we should
add probably get another half
inch inch of rainfall and that
means we'll climb well over 5 inches.
Probably getting five and a half
six inches of rainfall on the
month which would put it in the
top ten what its months on reco,
top five what its Mays on recor.
So we're getting into pretty ses
territory and then we get maybe another
shower or storm on Saturday, Su.
And things just continue to stay
on the very wet side of things.
And what that's also going to do is if
you look at our Drought Monitor,
this is really the figure that
matters the most and this map is
going to look really different.
This map will be updated on Thursday.
Every Thursday morning,
the Drought Monitor map is upda.
It takes the data through the
previous Tuesday in mind.
So last week's Drought Monitor
update did not include.
It included hardly any of the
rain that we got from last week.
I am going to guess that basicay
all the yellow in the Denver arn
Fort Collins, that'll be long g.
Colorado Springs might be entiry
removed from drought as well.
Pueblo as well, because even in Pueblo,
Co Springs last Thursday, by the way,
had about 3.2 inches of rainfall
on Thursday alone.
That was for Colorado Springs,
one of the wettest days ever
recorded them there as well.
Pueblo also saw about 2 1/2
inches of rainfall,
just a ton of water across all
of eastern Colorado I know.
It wasn't headache free,
but we did see quite a bit of issues.
I know our, our, our, our,
our wonderful producer Bobby Shn
had her her house flooded as we.
So I know there's unfortunately
some flooded basements,
some flooded issue flooding
issues around the metro area.
This was not a headache free rainfall.
A lot of you dealing with those headaches.
I will just note that we saw
some really good benefit.
I mean this amount of water here folks is
going to really help out with the drought.
For the next weeks,
if not months,
this was a drought busting,
not a drought denting.
This was a drought Buster here folks.
This for much of eastern
Colorado making a huge,
huge difference in terms
of the drought situation.
Now, one thing I've also heard a lot of,
and I'll kind of close out with this,
is the 2013 flood comparisons.
The rainfall amounts were similn
the immediate metro area in Den.
Again, 4 to 6 inches worth of rainfall
seemed to be what most of us ended up with.
That's fairly similar to what
we saw in September 2013.
Two big differences though and
that both of those differences
making this a lot less severe tn
what we saw from the 2013 flood.
Number one,
this is probably the most import
one in the foothills where you t
remember it was the Big Thompso,
the Saint Vrain rivers that reay
flooded and led to the destruction of lines,
parts of Boulder,
etcetera out into the foothills.
We didn't see nearly the amount
of water that we saw in 2013.
And a lot of the higher
elevation areas there,
that rain fell as snow instead,
which means that we didn't haves
huge rush of water coming downsm
like what we had again back in .
Very different situation in the
foothills first and foremost.
And that's the most important o.
Number two is what we saw last .
Those rainfall rates were a lot slower.
So often when we're talking about flooding,
what tends to concern us is how fast.
That rain is falling.
This was a fairly stretched out.
We saw a fairly consistent quar,
maybe half inch of rain per hour rainfall
rates in the September 2013 flo.
We saw one to two inch
per hour rainfall rates.
So a lot more water in a shorter period
of time and that led to a lot of those
bigger issues that we saw back in 2013.
So overall,
again I want to reemphasize that what we
saw just a few days ago while in some cases.
And we saw lots of sitting water
out on the streets and roadways.
This is not 2013 and it was not close
and that is certainly good news.
That said,
obviously the ground is pretty
saturated at this point.
Any water that we add will lead
to ponding on the roadways,
low lying areas,
streams,
creeks will continue to remain
on the high side for probably te
next couple of weeks at this po.
But we did I think for the most part avoid.
Some of the 2013 like you know,
the widespread devastation that we of
course remember from September .
For those of you who are there
then for those of you who are
not here in September of 2013,
that was the last really big mar
flood of note for us along the t
Range led to multiple fatalitie,
led to a couple of towns basicay
getting getting completely demolished,
notably the town of Lyons in Boulder County.
Again, this is not a 2013 level flood, but.
It did lead to quite a bit in
the way of headaches,
lot of standing water,
lot of issues and of course all
the hail damage that we saw from
the associated storm as well.
So top line takeaways from whate
saw last week, 1A ton,
a ton of water.
We picked up about a third of our average
annual rainfall in just about 48 hours.
We saw more than double our typl
full May rainfall in about 48 h.
We've added on a little bit
of that since then,
very long lived rainfall event
for us as well.
But the good news is we avoidede
2013 light consequences and thas
certainly something that we're grateful for.
And this overall a drought
busting rainfall that's that.
Again,
I know there's a lot of flooded
basements out here across the Dr
metro area and hopefully we don,
but we
will probably add another inch or two
of rainfall later on this week and I'll
probably exacerbate some of those concerns.
So just worth noting, we're not done.
With the rain yet,
although next week should note t
looks a lot drier for next weekh
temperatures they'll probably gt
into the low 80s with lots of sunshine,
so hopefully it gives you a good idea,
good context about what we just saw and
we'll keep posted with the very latest
on all this coming up here on 9 News.