The weather here is always interesting

As I stepped out my apartment door at 6.15am this morning a pungent smell assaulted my senses. The smell of smoke & burning bush. This is not an altogether unfamiliar smell to me, after living 11+ of my 39 years in Perth Western Australia. The battle being waged somewhere nearby is battled by Aussie firefighters summer after summer. Today is the first day of summer here in Colorado. Fortunately after last years record breaking summer made the Australian news, we had some idea of the kind of wildfire season they have here this time of year. But of course the fire season started weeks ago here and has already included the most disastrous bushfire in Colorado history (in terms of property lost).

The climate here is extremely dry due to the altitude, Denver city is 1 mile above sea level. The air is much drier than the air in either Perth or Narrabri where I have lived in dry climates before. That means once the warm weather strikes Colorado is like a tinderbox just waiting to ignite.

On top of that we get afternoon/evening thunderstorms most days lately in metropolitan Denver and the surrounding regions. Hmmm, just what a tinderbox needs lightning!

The recent Black forest fire damaged more than 500 homes near Colorado Springs, that is an astronomical number. The impact must be unimaginable for the community.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=colorado-wildfire-snuffs-over-500-h

   

But it isn't the only one, on any given day lately wildfires burn in several areas of Colorado. And yesterday a new one started in a region near where I am supposed to be hiking with my weekday women's hiking group on Wednesday.

We are not expecting temperatures over 32c (90f) for the next 10 days, but that is warm enough with our dry climate to keep Colorado burning.

So all that sounds bad enough and then consider that we also have had a a spate of tornadoes in Colorado lately, nothing as nasty as the whoppers that hit states like Oklahoma but still scary. A tornado touched down near Denver International Airport this week 5hrs before Matt was to fly out of there on a business trip! And of course in this high tech world there is always someone with a phone camera and access to the internet to upload images immediately like this one posted on Twitter.

  
So Colorado's weather certainly throws some challenges at the people who live here. For me it just means I like to get my hiking and shopping done before lunch so i don't get caught in an afternoon thunderstorm. And I am keeping my doors and windows closed on the days when the wind blows the smoke our way. But for the emergency services of Colorado it is a challenging time, I hope the season gets easier not harder!