Mud season 2011 in colorado

Boat (car) in Boulder County yesterday*

It was a very dry winter until recently here on the Front Range. Now the winter has turned wet - our mountain snowpack is 200% average, and snowing more as I write this.

For many days it has snowed and rained and snowed and rained. My young tomato plants look healthy but aren't getting any bigger. The motorcycle is languishing. I'm using the space heater in my office. The dogs are chronically covered with mud.

The traditional name of spring in Colorado is Mud Season. Spring has little meaning because the temperatures and precipitation events range from mid-winter to mid-summer conditions during this time, often within hours. The results are muddy dogs, cars, feet and gardens.

The Fourmile Fire burn area near Boulder has held up pretty well so far. As little as 0.5 inches of rainfall in an hour is likely to cause potentially serious problems; the precipitation received thus far has caused some high brown water but no flooding or serious debris flows as yet.

Trail Ridge road a few days ago - before it snowed a lot more**

But this is just one kind of problem we could have. Another problem is that 200% snowpack, and so late in the mud season...temperatures have been much lower than normal for this part of the season, but you know it's going to go. When it does, it may run off at record levels because it hasn't even started to melt in most places.

It's still snowing a lot up high, and parts of Utah already have 450% snowpack. The rivers served up by the Rocky Mountains will be wild and crazy this year.

Here in Boulder County, the OneRain-maintained automated rain gauges are doing their job of tracking the action from the clouds over the burn area, and with the stream gauges are providing the National Weather Service and public safety people with real-time knowledge so they know ahead of time about where potential problems will arise.

Our company's data enterprise today hosts data from about 17,000 sensors across the U.S. Our software and services provide vital information about rainfall and its consequences to people who are operating reservoirs, monitoring the safety of dams, generating hydropower, managing wastewater and stormwater, and yes, protecting us from floods and landslides.

These are the times I feel great about my career choice. We are doing something good for our community. And the moisture we're getting now is so necessary - in a short enough time I'll be bemoaning the hot weather and dry conditions that will herald Fire Season.

Meanwhile I need to remember to wash the towels - keeping the mud outside while bringing the dogs inside is a tough job this time of year.

* picture by Mark Leffingwell for the Daily Camera, 5/18/2011

** picture from AP/National Park Service, 5/13/2011