Tuesday, August 11, 2015

Huge Hail, Rain Storm Causes Havoc AGAIN In Colorado

Afttermath of the giant hailstorm and flash flood
Monday on Stoneridge Drive in Colorado Springs.
The video at the bottom of this post shows this street in
full flood mode during the height of the rain and hail 
The area around Colorado Springs and Manitou Springs, Colorado got nailed again by immense thunderstorms, severe flash flooding and hail Monday, 

You'll see some videos of the wild flash flood amidst lots of hail and rain on one Colorado Springs street on Monday.

The area around Colorado Springs has had a tough time since 2012  and early in the summer of 2013, when two immense wildfires removed much of the vegetation and trees in the hills across that region.

The Front Range, as the the eastern edge of the Colorado Rockies are known, are prone to strong thunderstorms if the wind blows from the east and other factors conspire to bring moisture and instability to the area.

The east winds are force to rise up the plains of eastern Colorado slope upward the more west you go. Then you hit the mountains, and the east winds are forced to rise even more sharply to get over the mountains.

Often, that results in thunderstorms, often accompanied by a LOT of hail, downpours and the occasional tornado.

With the trees and shrubs and stuff gone from many of the hills near Colorado Springs since 2013, less water soaks into the ground. Plus, the rains can carry fire debris, mud and rocks down the slopes that would have otherwise be held in place by trees, roots and plants.

The result has been numerous flash floods around Manitou Springs and Colorado Springs over the past two years.

It hasn't helped that the summer thunderstorms over the past three summers seem to be more vicious and wet than many in the past.

A new round of storms hit yesterday, forcing airline en route from Boston to Salt Lake City to make an emergency landing in Denver when hail smashed the windshields and nose cone of the plane. Nobody was seriously hurt in that incident. j

It also unleashed a rain and hailstorm on Colorado Springs, that whitened the ground like snow and triggered more incredible flash floods.

Watch this video to get an idea of how it played out:




Here's what it's like to get caught driving in one of these epic Colorado hail and flash flood storms.
The motorist in this video finally pulls over to get out of danger at the end of the video, but I would have pulled over long before he did:



And here's the scene Monday in Manitou Springs, Colorado. Notice it really isn't raining there. All the water came from fairly distant thunderstorms in the mountains above this resort town:

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