Our Indian Summer officially ended yesterday.  Goodbye 70s and warm sun.  Today, the high in Denver was 53° around midday.  By the time I got off work at 4:00, the temp had dropped nearly 20° and it was SNOWING!  We finally got our first snow of the season!  Although you can’t tell anymore by looking outside (the ground is still too warm), it snowed!

With that, I’ve created the Snow Total page for this season.  Be sure to check it for a running total of snow accumulated at our house this fall/winter/spring!

I’ve mentioned times before how the weather in Colorado is schizophrenic.  Wednesday was no exception.  While it was sunny at home, there were tornado warnings out by DIA; we ended up being under a tornado watch for about 7 hours.  The storm out by the airport produced 5 tornadoes and dumped so much hail it looked as if it had snowed.  People had to shovel ankle-deep hail out of driveways and sidewalks, while city and state plow trucks had to clear the streets.  Not to mention the damage done to homes and cars.  Here are some pictures submitted to a local news station.

Most of the day the weather at home was lovely, albeit humid — anything over 20% is humid for Colorado.  However, while we were at bible, study in a neighboring town, a storm went over Lafayette and dropped 1-inch diameter hail.  Although it would have been something to see hail that large, thankfully we weren’t home at the time.  Otherwise, my car, which would have been parked in the driveway, would have possibly been dented.  The only damage I did notice around the house were some tree branches had been stripped of their leaves.  When Noah came home from work yesterday I had him inspect our roof and his brother’s camper.  The only noticeable damage on the roof were some dents on the metal flashing around the sun lights.  However, the camper didn’t fare as well, but didn’t suffer too terribly either.  The plastic covers on the top of the camper were broken, but those can easily be replaced.

All the rain we have had lately has been nice, though, as we have not needed to yet turn on the sprinklers.  Today, the weather is supposed to be in the low-90s…how nice it would be if Logan was older and we could spend some quality time outside.  I’m picturing fun days where we can have picnics in the backyard in the shade of one of our many trees and then watch and laugh as he runs around in the sprinklers. 🙂

Don’t get me wrong, Autumn is one of my favorite seasons.  I love the colors the leaves change here – palm fronds just turn brown and fall off.  Not very exciting.  In fact, I don’t even mind raking the 500 million leaves that litter my yard each year.  We have 2 large trashcans just for this one season – we have that many leaves.  But  in Colorado, autumn really doesn’t last more than a few weeks.  Case in point – snow in October.

Now snow in October is very normal for the front range but not to the extent of the past 48 hours.  A slow-moving low decided to creep across Colorado dumping feet of snow across the urban corridor.  Yes that’s right, I said feet!  The snow started to fall Tuesday evening and didn’t stop until today.  By the time it was all said and done we had 15″ of snow at our house!  It’s beautiful; looks like Christmas…if only I had lights in my trees.  Maybe tomorrow I’ll take pictures, but I doubt it.  😉

Thursday was a cold, wet day here in Colorado.  The temps didn’t make it out of the 30s and we had a rain/freezing rain/snow mixture falling all day.  Toward the afternoon, the precipitation turned over to all snow, but it was very light and didn’t stick as the ground was still to warm.  Since it didn’t stick, it doesn’t count at the official first snow of the season.

Last night another cold front moved in to the region, after a day of highs in the 50s.  It started to snow maybe around 9pm last night after the temperature plummeted 10* in about 45 minutes.  Not only was it snowing, but it was sticking!  The first snow of the season is always very exciting!!  When we left home at 9:30 this morning we had 1.5″ of snow!  It’s continued to snow off and on all day, but I don’t think we’ve had much more accumulation.  Yet, it’s a very nice showing for the first snow!

I love this weather!

Sure, today is the last day of summer, but it definitely does not feel like it.  The high today is only expected to reach 51° — I doubt we’ll even see that since it’s about 40° outside right now (with a 31° wind chill)!  Did I mention it was 85° yesterday??

On top of the cold weather, it’s snowing.  Not in Denver where I am, but in the mountains and foothills (where Noah is working today).  This cold weather, snow and icy rain is expected to stick around all week, again with highs struggling to reach the 50s (or mid-50s).

There’s a roomer that the metro area will see potentially up to an inch of snow Tuesday night/Wednesday morning, but I’ll believe that one when I see it.  Any given weather forecaster is notoriously inaccurate when it comes to Colorado weather.

I’m just glad I have a space heater in my office, and when I get home you can bet that I will be turning up the furnace.  Got to make sure the baby stays warm, ya know.  😉

Leaving work today was like any other day…slowly merging onto I-25 because there is undoubtedly a massive truck in front of me on the on-ramp.  I’m also on the phone with my sister (hands-free of course), but I learned to drive in California so talking on the phone while driving is required to pass the license exam.  😉  I finally make it onto the interstate, look up and there is the sky is a figgin’ tornado!  Holy crap I have never seen a funnel cloud before in my life (other than on the tube)!  My sister sure did get an earful, but like the dutiful weather-obsessed sister she is, she quickly pulled-up the radar to tell me just where the storm was headed.

I got off the phone with Gretna after I exited the freeway as soon as I could in an attempt to snap a photo.  I called Noah who had not yet seen the twisty cloud and he pulled off to take a pic with his phone as well.  I phoned my sister again and continued to chase the storm…unfortunately or fortunately, depending how you look at it, the twister sucked itself back up into the clouds before I could take a photo.  However, I did find this video online so you can see exactly what I saw.

First off let me say how exciting yesterday was…for storm chasers!  Seriously, 5 tornadoes in the Metro area?  Eek!

Thank you NWS for saying yesterday was going to be sunny and in the 80s so I wore capris and a lightweight shirt to church only to walk outside in Boulder and get pelted by rain and hail!

Thank you to my mad driving skills that allowed us to beat the storm home by approximately 1 minute.

Thank you NWS for conveniently forgetting to include Eastern BoCo in the tornado warning when one touched down 5-6 miles from my house!

Thank you City of Lafayette for placing your tornado warning sirens just far enough away from my house that they could not be heard.

Thank you God that the nearest tornado was 5-6 miles away!

Here’s a video I found on YouTube (embedding doesn’t want to cooperate so you’ll have to make do with clicking on a link).  This was shot from the south side of the tornado.  We are northwest of where it touched down.

Is always sweeter when accompanied by the tympani of thunder.  Lava and I were sitting outside for a bit this evening, probably tempting fate, watching the flashes of lightening and listening to the rolls of thunder…that was of course until it started to rain.  Thunder storms are so rare in Ventura that I almost cherish them when they happen here.  It’s one of the things I love about Colorado.  However, if my house is ever destroyed by a tornado caused by one of these storms, I will probably be singing a different tune.  Until then (which hopefully never happens) happy first thunderstorm of the season!