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,. ""M19~g For the next three months, nearly all of the Climate Center's resources were directed towards assembling data on storm rainfall characteristics to help meteorologists, radar specialists, hydrologists, engineers, attorneys, insurance professionals and private citizens understand these potent stonnsand their impacts. Several reports have beien written on these floods. Copies of "An Analysis of Rain/all for the July 28, 1997 Flood in Fort Collins, Colorado" are available for $5 plus postage and handling. A comprehensive meteorological and radar study of the storm Was. published in the February 1999 Issue of the Bnlletin of the AmeriCan Meteorological Society. In 1998, a full year after the Pawnee Creek storm, the Climate Center was commissioned by the Colorado Water Conservation llOard to do a post analysis of thatremarkable storm. Limited copies of the report, ':4 post-evaluation of rainfall reports associated with the Pawnee Creekflood of July 29-30, 1997 in eastem Weld County and west em Logan County in northeast Colo- rado, " may still be available. October 1997 Nolan Doesken presented a special invited paper at the 1997 American Meteorological Society Applied Climatology Conference on the Fort Collins Flood. Special presentations were also given on the extreme rainfall event that hit northern Illinois during the summer of 1996. It was an Interesting comparison as the Colorado extreme storm affected only a few tens of square miles. The Illinois storm, while similar In dura- tion and intensity, covered thousands of square miles and produced flooding from south central Wisconsin all the way to northern Indiana. ,.i" i October 1997 Nolan Doesken presented a paper at the American Meteorological Society Applied Climalology Conference on the Infamous Front Range Snowstorm of April 14-15, 1921 which waS responSible for the 76 inch 24-hour snowfall accumnlation reported at Silver Lake, Colorado (Bonlder Watershed). Copies of this paper are available on request. :z, Personal Anecdote: As the scientific conference where I presented these two papers came to an Ilnd on October 24, 1997, Tom McKee (State Climatologist) and I gIljnced at the weather forecast maps for that evening and the fol- lowing morning. The maps looked remarkably $illarto what had occurred back in April 1921. I considered delaying my flight but decided that tl\e new airport conld safely accommodate aircraft landings. in severe winter. weather. I knew driving conditi<!ns might.be tough, but I just wanted to be home. My plane waslatebut did arrive at DIA that evening despite intense mowfall and. increas- ing winds. Driving conditions,. however, were horren- dous. It took nearly four hours to get fro11I.the aiJjK>rt to just south ofLongmont. As windsbowled, windshield wipers froze solid and visibilities dropped to zero; We . nearly lost our way more than once before weJDa(laged to pnll off at a tmckstop where we ended up spenditlg that. night in the car. I suppose we slept a little, but It certainly wasn't restful. Sometime after midnight the winds shifted slightly. The car shook with each wiD.d gust and blowing snow made sounds like sand blasting the sides of the car. While the blizzard continued to rage across almost all of eastern Colorackl, we managed to make it safely to Fort Collins by 8 a.m. Saturday morning. . Only later did we comelo realize that had we stayed at DIA only a few minutes longer, we would have. been stranded on fena Bonlevard for 24 hours or longer. It was also a few days later wilen we learned of the tremendous event that " I , 68 ,'j , '~ 4'" _, ..,.",,_li "~, .,<4>- .-,-", '., <.' '" .JL _i;~l~ilJLa._ "-,.'