As I mentioned in yesterday's post, summer-like interludes in October rarely last long on the Great Plains. When I left Hays, Kansas, this morning, a band of dark clouds stretched across the western horizon, a sign of change to come.
Showers developed east of WaKeeney, followed by steady rain for the next twenty miles. By the time I reached Park, Kansas, the skies were clearing and the wind had shifted from the north, dropping the temperature to 50 degrees F. I had crossed a cold front of a storm centered in southeastern South Dakota; its trailing cold front bowed southwestward through central Nebraska, western Kansas and southern Colorado. No doubt, the rain was welcome across the dry landscape of the High Plains.
A hundred miles east of Denver, I was traveling under a deep blue sky and the air was crystal clear. Indeed, I could see a line of cumulus clouds far to the west, forming above the high peaks of the Colorado Front Range.
