After two weeks of hot, humid weather in Missouri, I returned to Colorado today and was greeted by a cold front. As I approached Metro Denver, a thick band of clouds was moving south toward the city and the Front Range peaks were obscured by an upslope haze.
By the time I reached our Littleton farm, scattered showers and thunderstorms had formed above the urban corridor and the air temperature, thanks to the upslope flow, had dropped to 70 degrees F, a welcome change from the sunny, hot conditions on the Great Plains.
As I write this post, it is 65 degrees at the farm and skies are clearing behind the cold front. To our south, however, a swath of thunderstorms stretches along the Palmer Divide and into the foothills north of Pike's Peak. One of the storms, located near Wilkerson Pass, west of Colorado Springs, has become severe and radar indicates that it has spawned a tornado. The storms will likely weaken as the sun sets and our cool reprieve will be brief; if the current forecast is accurate, we can expect high temperatures near 100 degrees F in the Front Range cities tomorrow afternoon.
