Today was one of those hard to call days! There was definitely potential in the Texas Panhandle, which was a 5 hour drive from Limon, CO but there was also good potential just outside of Denver which was only 45 minutes away.

Meteorologists refer to a phenomenon called the DCVZ, or Denver Convergence Vorticity Zone, basically it the area where the upsloping easterly winds meet the downsloping winds from the mountains along an area known as the Palmer divide.

This naturally occurring orographic phenomenon exists about 33% of the time when thunderstorms are present east of the Denver front range.

The idea was to play this 150 mile area where landspouts and other spinups are common as opposed to the deeper convection in Texas which was far less organized.
I do miss a good Texas Panhandle storm, sometimes referred to as Cap Rock magic where the same upsloping easterly winds meet the New Mexico dryline in far west Texas and you get monster storms forming. Unlike Colorado however, there is no front range in Texas to so the orographic features don’t exist and that means if the upper dynamics are not present, your just going to have a big messy storm with lots of big hail.

Time, space and probabilities made my decision.

After getting delayed in Limon, CO (visa card scare that was nothing) I headed to Bennett, CO to catch some rapidly developing storms. Initially the weak storms looked poor then burst into action with 2.5 inch hail as a boundary surged north.

Unfortunately, this boundary also led to the storms demise as the shear vectors coupled with the 500mb flow meant the storms just became a big mess.

What was impressive was the flash flooding. I’m not sure why this happens, but all over the plains flash flooding is a real problem and it gets worse as the elevation goes up. I’m not sure if the soil just can’t absorb the water or the little tributaries that litter the landscape in Southern Ontario just don’t exist in the same capacity across the plains?

Whatever the case, this storm was a light sprinkle by Southern Ontario standard, some 20-30mm of rain in an hour, yet flooding was occurring across Colorado.

The “Turn Around Don’t Drown” slogan seems to be unheeded much of the time and it’s not just a Colorado thing, it happens everywhere. People seem to always want to test the waters which is fine when you make it across but, you never know how deep the water is and a misguided assumption can become a real problem quickly.

This underpass rain bridge had torrents of water passing through yet some people still attempted to make it across! Insane! Chunks of mud, grass and others things were being washed away with the flash flooding that seemed to come out of nowhere!

Once the storms died down we made our way towards Denver, CO to see the city. On the way over we passed the Denver NWS Radar, Jen snapped this photo at 75 MPH.

Our jont into Metro Denver along I-70 West during the 6PM rush hour was probably not a great idea but I did not mind some traffic slowdowns and Jen suggested we keep going west to see the mountains and I thought, why not? The GPS decided to detour us, through the downtown core! It actually turned out to be a nice scenic drive through the heart of the city. We eventually passed through the core and worked our way back onto I-70 West and into the hills!

We found ourselves at a scenic lookout called “Lookout Mountain”, it was gorgeous and these “hills” were massive, way bigger than anything in the Appalachians.

The afternoon sun was initially shrouded by cirrus clouds from the earlier convection and remnants working in from New Mexico, but eventually the even sun was able to sneak out from under the clouds and the landscape was just majestic! Snow capped peaks, sprawling pine forests and clouds creeping over the mountains, amazing.

Deer were also plentiful, a little too plentiful for my liking. This herd was just grazing beside the road to the lookout pint and had no fear as I walked up to grab these photos.

We finally worked out way back down towards Denver to start the trip south towards New Mexico. Everything was going well until…


We ran into a fatal collision on 85/87 South in Fountain Valley, near Pikes Peak. Someone on a motorcycle collided with a stopped truck and ugh.. the rest is history. We were stuck in the backlog for an hour, so I decided to call it a night. I had Jen quickly call a hotel in Pueblo, CO which was about 35 km to our south. We had a scenic back road 11PM tour of the countryside and finally landed at the hotel around 11:35PM.

We’re calling it a night and will continue the trip through New Mexico tomorrow into Texas. I’ll let you know if we spot any UFO’s!!