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<br />of Prowers, the peak discharge was computed as about 70,000 cfs. <br /> <br />Flood of 1908 . The flood of October 19-20, 1908, was caused by heavy rains, <br />chiefly during the night of October 18, which covered the part of the Arkansas River Basin <br />in Colorado east of a line running just west of La Junta, except the area south of a line <br />from the Purgatoire River above Smith Canyon to the southeast corner of the Statec The <br />Geological Survey made an investigation of this flood soon after it occurred. <br /> <br />, <br /> <br />Rain gau!Jes were also in operation at various points along the canal, which is part <br />of the Amity cal1al system, north of the Arkansas River. These gauges recorded <br />precipitation of 6.25 inches 40 miles northwest of Holly, 6 inches near Prowers, and 6.34 <br />inches a few miles north of Lamar. Most of the rain fell within 8 hours during the night of <br />October 18-19, 1908. <br /> <br />~ <br /> <br />ThB floool of 1908 appears to have had two distinct parts. The first, October 19, <br />due chiefly to thE' very heavy rains on the north side of the river. Throughout the area <br />affected the ground was very hard and dry and had been grazed so closely that practically <br />no vegetation rE.mained. These conditions were conducive to an extremely high <br />percentage of run-off, and it is believed that as much as two-thirds of the 6-inch rainfall <br />reported appeared immediately in streams. On the north side of the river the water was <br />reported to have "flowed away in a perfect sheet, overspreading the whole country and <br />running into the river chiefly below the Amity Dam at Prowers, causing a very rapid rise". <br />This run-off reached Holly sometime before midnight, October 19, and reached a stage <br />of 9.8 feet on the, gage at Holly. The flood was prolonged by the arrival of flood waters <br />from Two Butte Creek and smaller tributaries from the south, and had only receded haH <br />a foot the morning of October 20 when the second flood arrived. <br /> <br />The second part of the flood was caused chiefly by floodwaters from the Purgatoire <br />River. It reached a peak stage of 11 feet at Holly at noon, October 20. At 7 a.m. October <br />21 it had receded to 4.6 feet, and at 7 a.m. October 22 it was 3.0 feet. <br /> <br />The peak discharge at Amity Dam, haH a mile north of Prowers, was estimated at <br />more than 100,000 cfs, and at Holly a slope-area measurement made by the Amity Land <br />Co. gave a discharge of 136,000 cfs. The discharge at Holly in 1908 was slightly greater <br />than during the flood of 1921. <br /> <br />Flood of 1921. Above the mouth of the Purgatoire River no damaging flood <br />occurred after 1894 until 1921 , when the general storm that covered the State June 2-5 <br />was concentrated in a series of cloudbursts between Canon City and Puebloc These <br />covered two separate areas. The larger area, roughly elliptical, extended from the northern <br />boundary of Pueblo County to the top of the Wet Mountains near Beulah, a distance of 30 <br />miles, and from a point a short distance above the mouth of Rush Creek nearly to Pueblo, <br />a distance of 15 miles. The smaller area covered the south slope of the Pikes Peak uplift, <br />which forms the northern part of the mountain valley, and extended from a point above <br />Skaguay Reservoir to a point 3 or 4 miles south of the river, a distance of 25 miles, and <br />from Oil Creek to Beaver Creek, a distance of 11 milesc The two areas together comprise ~ <br />550 square miles. <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />Colorado Flood <br />Hydrology Manual <br /> <br />4.26 <br /> <br />fFI!Ff <br />