Gotta Love These Spring Storms
I heard a couple of people moaning Friday morning at King Sooper that spring would never arrive or that the snow was inconveniencing them. But I don’t think anybody was really serious; we all knew then that today would be sunny and the snowdrifts would be gone soon. Looks like I’ll be out on the bike again with highs predicted in the 70s for the next couple of days.
That’s because we all know how important these spring storms are to our survival here. This storm was particularly wet, almost comically so at times. Yesterday afternoon I was pushing large drifts off the cars while a squall of spring-like rain soaked through my coat. The dogs come back in from the backyard looking and feeling like they had just returned from the Amazon.
I think our broken crabapple branch looks like a crocodile in this shot.
The storm stranded thousands of travelers statewide, shut down Interstate 70 and wreaked more than its share of damage, mostly on flora. One of the larger limbs of the lovely, circular crabapple tree that grows in the middle of our backyard broke under the weight, with a huge number of auxiliary branches hanging to the ground and then ignominiously being frozen in place there. But another bush out by the fence that yesterday looked as if it had been broken completely down stands tall now as the drifts diminish and disappear.
The moisture news is outstanding. In an email, weather watcher Steve Jones of the Boulder County Nature Association (a great bookmark for local nature information) reports that the storm dumped 4.34 inches of real moisture, making it the second wettest storm to hit south Boulder in 15 years. (A 1993 blizzard produced 5.8 inches of water!)
More than four inches! Almost one fifth of the total moisture we get over 365 days in one twenty-four-hour period. After a fairly normal dry winter, Jones reports that Boulder has gotten 7.15 inches since March 24, which puts us three inches ahead for the calendar year and must be why the grass in our yard is actually green again. In a geographic area which depends on every micro-inch of moisture and can go through late June, July and August without noticeable precipitation, that’s encouraging news for us all.
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[...] Jukebox in My Head added an interesting post today on Gotta Love These Spring StormsHere’s a small readingI heard a couple of people moaning Friday morning at King Sooper that spring would never arrive or that the snow was inconveniencing them. But I don’t think anybody was really serious; we all knew then that today would be sunny and the snowdrifts would be gone soon. Looks like I’ll be out on the bike again with highs predicted in the 70s for the next couple of days. That’s because we all know how important these spring storms are to our survival here. This storm was particularly wet, almost co [...]
[...] Jukebox in My Head created an interesting post today on Gotta Love These Spring StormsHere’s a short outlineI heard a couple of people moaning Friday morning at King Sooper that spring would never arrive or that the snow was inconveniencing them. But I don’t think anybody was really serious; we all knew then that today would be sunny and the snowdrifts would be gone soon. Looks like I’ll be out on the bike again with highs predicted in the 70s for the next couple of days. That’s because we all know how important these spring storms are to our survival here. This storm was particularly wet, almost co [...]
[...] Jukebox in My Head put an intriguing blog post on Gotta Love These Spring StormsHere’s a quick excerptI heard a couple of people moaning Friday morning at King Sooper that spring would never arrive or that the snow was inconveniencing them. But I don’t think anybody was really serious; we all knew then that today would be sunny and the snowdrifts would be gone soon. Looks like I’ll be out on the bike again with highs predicted in the 70s for the next couple of days. That’s because we all know how important these spring storms are to our survival here. This storm was particularly wet, almost co [...]
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