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<br />Raton Creek enters the Purgatoire River approximately <br />1.5 miles upstream from the Trinidad city limits. <br />An uncontrolled south bank tributary, Raton Creek, <br />drains 57 square miles of a high, mountainous region <br />along the Colorado-New Mexico State Line. Raton Creek <br />flows in a steep, narrow channel which is deeply incised <br />within a valley, averaging about 1000 feet in width <br />in the Starkville vicinity. <br /> <br />Reilly Canyon Arroyo and Powell Arroyo are the other <br />two streams studied in qetail. They are both intermit- <br />tent flowing streams, which follow steep, narrow, <br />deeply incised channels as are the Apishapa River <br />and the Purgatoire tributaries, which were studied <br />by approximate methods. <br /> <br />Vegetation varies throughout the basins studied. In <br />areas above timberline, the steep mountain slopes <br />are void of vegetal cover. In the timber and woodland <br />areas along mountain canyons and foothills, aspen, <br />scrub oaks, pinon, juniper, and sagebrush with growth <br />of buffalo grass, are found. On the plains, the ground <br />cover is low grasses, sagebrush, and cacti. <br /> <br />Development on the flood plains of the streams studied <br />is practically non-existent, except in and near Trinidad <br />and Starkville, where commercial, industrial, and <br />residential development has encroached up to the channel <br />banks along several reaches of the Purgatoire River <br />and Raton Creek. <br /> <br />2.3 Principal Flood Problems <br /> <br />The majority of the flood-producing storms over the <br />Purgatoire River Basin occur during the spring and <br />summer months of April through August. Because of <br />the topography and the geographical location with <br />respect to the path of invading air masses, the basin <br />is subject to several storm types and combinations <br />of storms. These storms may be divided into two classi- <br />fications; the frontal storm, resulting from frontal <br />activity of two or more air masses, and the thunderstorm <br />resulting from orographic or convective lifting. Each <br />of these may cover a large area. Frontal storms gen- <br />erally produce moderate precipitation intensities; <br />during thunderstorms, precipitation intensities may <br />be high at random locations within the storm area. <br />Thunderstorms in the county are most active during <br />July and August. Available records indicate that <br />snowmelt has seldom contributed to flood occurrences, <br /> <br />7 <br />