"BoulderZ" (BoulderZ)
05/21/2014 at 13:32 • Filed to: None
2
8|
"BoulderZ" (BoulderZ)
05/21/2014 at 13:32 • Filed to: None | 2
| 8 |
Spring in Colorado is fun for car people, because everyone brings out the nice rides from winter hibernation, usually after months of projects and upgrades. However, it only takes a few weeks to warm up enough that we get strong convective cells. You can read that as "thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes". And weather patterns here are often small and volatile, making it extremely difficult to tell just what you'll get. One area might get devastating hail, and a mile a way it's just rain, or even sunny and clear. Today's NWS note is pretty typical for most days in spring and early summer:
TODAY WILL SEE ANOTHER ROUND OF ISOLATED SUPERCELL THUNDERSTORMS OVER NORTHEAST CO AND SOUTHEAST WY. SOUTHEASTERLY LOW LEVEL WIND FIELDS APPEAR MORE FAVORABLE THAN YESTERDAY FOR MORE SUSTAINED ROTATING UPDRAFTS. ALSO...EASTERLY/SOUTHEASTERLY LOW LEVEL WINDS OVER EASTERN CO WILL HELP TO STRENGTHEN THE DCVZ WHERE A LOCALLY ENHANCED RISK OF TORNADOES IS EXPECTED TODAY. VERY LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING WINDS WILL ALSO BE POSSIBLE. STORMS MAY PERSIST INTO THE EVENING AND SPREAD INTO WESTERN NEB AND FAR WESTERN KS BEFORE WEAKENING.
In Boulder, we're close enough to the mountains that we don't usually get the really bad storms. But just east of here, starting at about I-25, it can get very nasty. Yesterday brought baseball size hail to a few towns on the plains. It would have been a bad day to drive the fun car to work. A little planning and awareness goes a long way.
How much is your car worth to you? A 5% chance of one inch hail can roughly translate to "you have a 1 in 20 chance of your car getting totalled if you park outside today", depending on the details. Being in to cars can unintentionally make you pretty good with weather information and risk/probability. If you want to keep up to date on the weather (and the risks that go with it), check out the great page and services from NOAA on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! . Or you can just Like/Follow them on !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! or !!!error: Indecipherable SUB-paragraph formatting!!! and get the maps and updates live.
!!! UNKNOWN CONTENT TYPE !!!
Squid
> BoulderZ
05/21/2014 at 13:40 |
|
And that is why I love California, although in March my town did have a couple of tornadoes touch down, nothing to big though. But aside from those two instances it is never really a bad day to drive the fun car. . .
|
BoulderZ
> Squid
05/21/2014 at 13:44 |
|
Yeah, every place has it's geohazards, some are just more or less hazardous to cars than others. We get wildfires, hail/t-storms, flash floods (and some downstream flooding), a few tornadoes in the east, and snow/avalanches. West Coast gets wildfires, quakes, flash floods, and landslides. SE throws hurricanes and widespread downstream floods in to the mix. Just have to pick your poison. You might have the best Nice Car Conditions in the US, though, as long as you're not too close to salt air.
Nothing
> BoulderZ
05/21/2014 at 14:14 |
|
My Miata got hail smacked a couple of weeks ago, but it was a conscious decision. The ST was in my hands for only 1 day when I went out of town, so I sacrificed the project car that's still in need of bodywork and parked the Focus in the garage. Sure enough, the hood I just replaced now needs to be replaced, as does the trunk.
I debated driving the Miata today (ultimately drove the Focus), but the stronger cells usually stay south/east of us in Westminster. Keeping my fingers crossed that trend continues.
|
BoulderZ
> Nothing
05/21/2014 at 14:21 |
|
Sounds like you did a sound job in making the best decision in a bad situation, i.e. lesser of evils. Fingers crossed here as well!
I can often avoid commute-hail risk by just riding my bike. But, I have been caught in hail on that. Up to that point, I had no idea how much that could hurt. Got a new helmet out of it, though.
Denver Is Stuck In The 90s
> BoulderZ
05/21/2014 at 14:25 |
|
yesterday was not fun in denver, I was afraid that my dad's van was gonna lose a windshield. I took this in the aftermath:
|
BoulderZ
> Denver Is Stuck In The 90s
05/21/2014 at 15:10 |
|
I was surprised to see on the late news how bad Denver had it. All we had here was just a few drops of rain. Not even enough to turn on the wipers. Hope you escaped damage!
|
Denver Is Stuck In The 90s
> BoulderZ
05/21/2014 at 15:28 |
|
we did, luckily the only car we had on the driveway was our odyssey, and it was parked so close to the house that most of the hail that hit it came off the roof of the house, so it didnt hit the car hard
|
BoulderZ
> Denver Is Stuck In The 90s
05/21/2014 at 15:34 |
|
Glad to hear it! Hail damage gets expensive. The company I work for had about 30 people fly out for big conference/tradeshow gig two years ago. We had a policy about not paying for covered parking at the airport (DIA). That's when that giant storm went through, even damaged some planes. Work/insurance policies meant the company was on the hook for at least deductibles, sometimes more. They pay for employees to use covered parking there now.