Rain pounds Front Range
By Bill Scanlon, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)
Published May 7, 2008 at 6:40 a.m.
Updated May 7, 2008 at 10:14 a.m.
Photo by George Kochaniec Jr. © The Rocky
Northbound traffic crawls along I-25 at Sixth Avenue this morning. Several roads in the area reported flooding and some delays in the morning commute.
Photo by George Kochaniec Jr. © The Rocky
Northbound traffic crawls along I-25 at Sixth Avenue this morning. Several roads in the area reported flooding and some delays in the morning commute.
Photo by Eric Brown, Rocky Mountain News
The scene about 7:15 today near Parker and Iliff.
Photo by George Kochaniec Jr. © The Rocky
A man makes his way through the rain on Colorado Boulevard at Colfax Avenue early this morning.
The skies roared and dropped rain and hail on parts of metro Denver this morning, sending some cars hydroplaning and bringing others to a stop in fender-high water on the low-lying underpasses of I-25.
The northbound I-25 ramp to westbound Sixth Avenue was closed until shortly after 7 because of so much high water; northbound and southbound ramps to Colfax Avenue also were trouble spots.
Expect delays due to high water on U.S. 36 at Church Ranch Road and southbound I-25 south of Colorado 119.
An area south of Colorado Springs also was blasted. Colorado 115 near Fort Carson's gates 6 and 7 has 3 inches of standing water in some places and 3 inches of hail in other areas, the Colorado State Patrol says.
"We've had a few slideoffs, but nothing involving serious bodily injury," CSP spokesman Gilbert Mares said. The hydroplaning has been caused by and large by motorists "going too fast for the conditions."
Neighbors on and near the 5400 block of West Hinsdale Avenue in Littleton will be without gas heat for a short while this morning after lightning struck a tree, went into the root system and ignited an underground gas line.
"They're shutting off the main line," Littleton Fire Rescue division chief Jay Ruoff said at about 9 this morning. "No structures were threatened, and no one had to be displaced."
Littleton Fire Rescue and Xcel Energy crews responded to the fire.
The thunderstorm moved down from the mountains, pounding some areas along a north-south line, sparing others.
Some parts of southwest Denver and Littleton measured more than an inch of rain, and southwest Boulder got pea-sized hail, while other areas, particularly in the southeast metro area, didn't get much at all.
Denver International Airport remained dry by 6:45 this morning, and Arvada had received barely a sprinkle.
But an area just west of Highlands Ranch recorded three-tenths of an inch in a half-hour; and a stretch northwest of Fort Lupton got a half an inch in a half-hour, National Weather Service meteorologist Frank Benton said.
Another heavy area of rain is south and west of Broomfield.
"Most of the other places are getting light stuff," Benton said. The storm developed as snow west of Boulder and is slowly drifting eastward.
"It looks like it might be letting up a little bit," Benton said.
U.S. 6 between Vail and Avon is closed because of a retaining wall problem. And I-76 near Fort Morgan has restrictions because of the wet conditions. No trucks weighing more than 6 tons are allowed on the I-76 stretch between Colorado 52 and Colorado 14.
A new weather disturbance will enter western Colorado late tonight and keep showers and thunderstorms going over the mountains after midnight.
Thursday and Friday, the metro Denver area likely will see just a slight chance of afternoon showers and thunderstorms.
There is a better chance of rain on Saturday as a stronger system moves across the area along with a cold front.
Drier and warmer weather will arrive Sunday and Monday.
Afternoon highs will bounce from 67 today to 64 on Thursday, 68 on Friday and just 56 on Saturday.
Sunday, Monday and Tuesday are expected to be partly sunny with a high Sunday of 69. Monday and Tuesday should be in the low 70s.
The high country is getting rain and snow from this storm, and likely from the storm coming through tonight. Daytime highs will be mostly in the 40s through Friday, edging up to the low 50s Saturday through Monday.
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May 7, 2008
9:09 a.m.
Suggest removal
snowsurfer writes:
I am suprised SASQUATCH is not here pointing to this as proof global warming is a hoax.
Man he is crazy.
May 7, 2008
9:09 a.m.
Suggest removal
fishtanksamurai writes:
Rain = gridlock, snow = gridlock, accident = gridlock. This city is going to be impossible to negotiate during the DNC.
May 7, 2008
10:05 a.m.
Suggest removal
Buckwheat writes:
So-o-o-o-o, how's that new gas sipping econo car with the 4 1/2" ground clearance working for ya this morning???
May 7, 2008
10:08 a.m.
Suggest removal
smith writes:
Al Gore has already weighed in on the weather this morning:
http://www.businessandmedia.org/artic...
And you call Sasquatch crazy!!
May 7, 2008
10:33 a.m.
Suggest removal
robertzimmerman writes:
"So-o-o-o-o, how's that new gas sipping econo car with the 4 1/2" ground clearance working for ya this morning???"
Just fine. I had one just like it in England, where it *really* rains. Thanks for asking.
May 7, 2008
10:45 a.m.
Suggest removal
nowhearthis writes:
No wonder Coloradoans are scared of the DNC, if they can't even handle a drizzle.
May 7, 2008
10:52 a.m.
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Buckwheat writes:
Yea, but England has better drainage..
May 7, 2008
11:16 a.m.
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snowsurfer writes:
It rains so often here.
May 7, 2008
12:18 p.m.
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jacka writes:
SASQUATCH is always right, especially on the Right-to-Work.
As to global warming, that is Gore's uneducated view of the natural ebb and flow of earths growth and maturity.
Remember Al Gore, he developed the internet.
Thanks Albert
May 7, 2008
1:48 p.m.
Suggest removal
greenleaf writes:
jacka,
I agree with Squatch on Corn Ethanol being a hare brained idea but that's about where it ends.
Global Warming isn't Gore's invention or exclusive view. It doesn't take a climatologist, biologist or glaciologist to tell us that our climate is changing, but it does help us get to the root causes. Most of the science points to man interacting with nature to create accelerated change in our climate system.
May 7, 2008
3:03 p.m.
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jonnyrotten writes:
"It doesn't take a climatologist, biologist or glaciologist to tell us that our climate is changing..."
I can agree wil you on that point, but I'm not buying the "Most science points to man..." mumbo jumbo.
The earch has experienced several global cooling and global warming cycles since the Great Ice Age alone and the climate will continue to change long after the human species is extinct.
Its fair to conceed that current climate warming projections fall within well-documented natural variations in past climate and observed temperature data. These data do not necessarily support the maximum case forecast scenarios.
May 7, 2008
3:30 p.m.
Suggest removal
greenleaf writes:
jonnyrotten,
You quoted me out of context, my friend. The last part of the quoted sentence is every bit as important as the first. The total sentence which is meant to be read in totality states: "Most of the science points to man interacting with nature to create accelerated change in our climate system."
The point I was making is that man along with other natural processes is contributing to some degree in the process of global warming. Science has established the affect greenhouse gasses such as CO2 and Methane have on the atmosphere. Man has been producing ever increasing amounts of CO2 since the first time he lighted a campfire. Volcanic eruptions and natural decomposition of plants and animals also release Carbon Dioxide.
It isn't a major intellectual reach to come to the conclusion that man is a contributing factor to this process, the only question is as to what degree he is contributing.
This could well be a "natural variation" of our climate. Even if that is the case, we may be either a trigger, a catalyst or be intensifying its affects. Perhaps we are all three. The best case scenario is offered by those who believe that the earth and its systems are so vast that any affect we have would be inconsequential. These are the extreme optimists in this debate. Others believe that we are a major factor and if we continue on this path we will create a vastly different world full of unintended consequences. I believe that the truth exists somewhere in between, that we are a factor and that we can mitigate our affects.