Laserfiche WebLink
<br />Precipitation data <br /> <br />At this elevation and in the vicinity of this site, large rainstorms <br /> <br />occur frequently. Five extreme storms are listed in the report by Miller <br /> <br /> <br />et al. (1984). These storms include the 1938 Spring Canyon, 1938 Missouri <br /> <br /> <br />Canyon near Masonville, 1948 Fort Collins, 1948 Tucker Gulch at Golden, and <br /> <br /> <br />1976 Big Thompson flood, all resulting from intense thunderstorms. <br /> <br />Streamflow data <br /> <br />As stated earlier, lower elevation floods result from intense <br /> <br />rainstorms. The flood-frequency curves for the Big Thompson River at Mouth <br /> <br />of Canyon, near Drake are sho~~ in Figure 5. Rainfall controls the fre- <br /> <br />quency curve for floods greater than the 2-year flood. The contribution <br /> <br />of snowmelt to the flood frequency is small, because the snowmelt generally <br /> <br />only comes from the higher mountains. Although the size of the drainage <br /> <br />area at site 21 is 2.23 times larger than at Estes Park (site 18), the <br />100-year snowmelt flood is only 22 percent larger. The flood of record <br />at site 21 is 31,200 cubic feet per second (883 cubic meters per second), <br />which occurred during the 1976 flash flood. Frequency curves for <br />other lower elevation sites have rainfall curves much higher than the <br /> <br />snowmelt curves. <br /> <br />.3~ <br /> <br />.- ,--- -------- <br />