Ah! June is moving in, along with warmer weather. The snow is FINALLY melting
up above 9,000 feet, and summer heat is on the way. However, there is one thing
about summer that many of us dislike and others don't think too much about... it doesn't
only get hot, it gets ... DRY ...

We live in the part of the country that dries out in June, and July with some thunderstorms
becoming more numerous again in August The combination between the lack of storms
coming in from California, and the low humidity and heat creates a problem with our lawns, shrubbery, and gardens. Basically, we "brown out". Although this is a normal part of our climatic cycle, some years, the rainy season persists from the winter jet stream pattern a little bit longer. THIS is one of those years. While you may have dodged raindrops on Memorial Day, all this rain is creatnig a beautiful green, lush environment as the trees are just now coming into full bloom, a few weeks late. Now if we can only keep this up..... :)

The flip side of course is that rain could aggravate the already tricky flood potential. The cooler than normal spring has created a slow snow melt, and our main concern would be if we suddenly hit 90s in the valley each day, which would generally be 70s above 9000'. If that were to take place, the strong sun against the snowpack, and 70 degree temps would quickly melt the remaining 10+ feet of snow up top, and the flood threat would rise once again. So, the bottom line is that the temperature, more than the amount of rain is the key to the general flood threat in the next several weeks (unless an isolated thunderstorm was involved with extremely heavy downpours, that would also cause flash flooding.

Todd