We live in a place where we want/expect everything to be above average. Our kids, our meals, our hikes… you get what I mean.
But this week, especially early in the week, we have been blessed with weather conditions that have given us rainfall numbers that are just about average for the year. And that’s a good thing. A look at the weather page of this newspaper showed us 9.7 inches of rain for the year, a bit more than the 9.46 inches we would normally expect for this time of year. True, we are above average and perhaps another front is expected this weekend, but I guess most of us will take it and smile, even if our plans are changed a bit.
We used to be able to count on the monsoon rains that arrive in late July to bring us the moisture we need on a regular basis each year. I remember late July evenings at the Snowmass Rodeo or in the band tent when storms would roll in for a brief visit, bring lightning and thunder for a wild show, and then disappear as quickly as they came.
But these days the weather is all over the place, pun intended. Over the last week or so a late monsoon has formed, bringing water from the Gulf of Mexico into the state and giving us much-needed rain and significantly cooler temperatures, and it looks like that trend could continue for a while. And we’ve had clouds all day.
Remember, the first week of this month saw intense fires on the Front Range near Boulder, and fire conditions were borderline severe in Pitkin, Eagle, and Garfield counties. But with the storms this week in August, we’re pretty well set up for campfires, grilling, and the like.
Of course, there are other things to consider when it comes to monsoon rain, especially if you have to hit the road. The carnage that hit Highway 82 between Carbondale and Glenwood Springs on Saturday night last weekend must have been something special. Not far from Thunder River Market, it poured down, and I mean poured down, and tons of dirt, mud and debris piled up to three feet deep on the roadway for more than three-quarters of a mile.
It took a massive cleanup effort by CDOT crews to fully open the road by 2:45 p.m. Monday afternoon. According to CDOT’s Facebook page, workers used three front-end loaders, an excavator and nine trucks to collect and haul away the dirt and mud from the highway. On Sunday, they began by digging a trench through the debris to allow water to drain from the clogged area, then worked through the night “loading material into seven dump trucks, each of which made 40 trips to haul away the debris. Approximately 450 truckloads of debris (mud and rocks) were hauled away over the course of two days.” The post continued, “Before the final push to open, crews used a water truck and three road sweepers in a ‘relay formation’ to wash and scrub the pavement. (Staggered formation means that the units are arranged diagonally, with each unit behind and to the left or right of the unit in front.)” They should be thanked for this herculean effort.
And then, of course, it rained even more. I think when it comes to precipitation, “average” is a pretty good number.
