State still short of rain

Near-record storms for 3 months needed to return to normal

Sara Burnett, Rocky Mountain News

Published July 5, 2006 at midnight

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Much-needed rainstorms rolled across the metro area during the long holiday weekend, but Colorado still is so parched that it will take three months of near-record rains - conditions the National Weather Service call "a long shot" - just to return the state to normal.

Denver International Airport recorded 2.89 inches of precipitation from Jan. 1 through Monday, meteorologist Jim Kalina said. That's the second-driest it's been since the weather service began keeping track in 1921. It's only an inch more than in 2002, when drought devastated much of Colorado.

Other areas aren't doing much better, weather service data show.

From Grand Junction to Burlington, precipitation levels from Jan. 1 through May 31 were well below average, with communities such as Colorado Springs and Montrose receiving less than one-third their typical rainfall.

"Weather in Colorado is so variable," Kalina said, noting that parts of Aurora received an inch or more of rain on Monday, while DIA barely got wet. "But the one thing you can say is, at least up to (Tuesday), it's pretty much been dry all over."

That spells trouble for fire-prone land and for farmers and ranchers, some of whom say they're looking at a repeat of 2002, when all 46 Colorado counties were designated drought disaster areas.

"Almost everything I'm looking at is in worse shape than it was then," said John Stroh, a rancher from Walsenberg who sits on the board of directors of the Colorado Farm Bureau. "Nothing's growing, nothing's green. There's no water . . . We're in trouble out here."

Stroh and his brother likely will sell half their cattle to make it through the summer, he said.

The National Weather Service's Climate Prediction Center doesn't leave much room for optimism. The center's long-range forecast calls for an "equal chance" of higher- or lower-than-normal precipitation through September.

That basically means forecasters can't say which way it will go. But they do predict higher-than-normal temperatures, which could exacerbate dry conditions.

Kalina said the news isn't all bad.

This year's monsoon season, which brings heavy rains from Mexico via Arizona and New Mexico, started June 28, the National Weather Service said. That's earlier than the July 3 average and nearly three weeks ahead of last year.

Heavy rains scattered across the Denver area Tuesday night, causing minor flooding in some spots and postponing fireworks displays.

The heaviest rainfall was reported in Denver's Cherry Creek neighborhood, which had received 1.6 inches as of about 10 p.m., according to the National Weather Service in Boulder.

Parts of southeast Aurora, Arvada and downtown Denver also received an inch or more, Kalina said.

But Kalina also said it would take 9.5 inches of rain between Tuesday and the end of September to get precipitation levels at DIA up to the average of 13.14 inches.

"It could happen," Kalina said. "But I wouldn't count on it."

Staff writers Michael Malik and Tillie Fong contributed to this report.

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