LEADVILLE, Colo. — Leadville doesn't usually get big rainstorms, and that's what made what happened on Tuesday afternoon an historic storm.
Nearly two inches of rain fell in Leadville on Tuesday afternoon, making it the wettest day on record there. Records in Leadville, though, only date back 47 years, making this a relatively short-lived record.
Regardless, it's rare for a city at Leadville's elevation - the Lake County city sits at 10,000 feet - to see such a prolific type of rainfall like the one that doused the city on Tuesday afternoon.
A series of monsoonal rainstorms splashed through the mountains and foothills on Tuesday afternoon, including the exceptionally wet storm that brought Leadville its historic rainfall.
1.70 inches of rain fell in just one hour in Leadville, between 4 and 5 p.m. on Tuesday afternoon. For context, in just one hour, Leadville saw more rain than any other day in the previous 47 years of record keeping there.
Almost all of the rain (1.81 inches) that fell on Tuesday in Leadville fell in just two hours, between 4 and 6 p.m.
Because Leadville is at such a high elevation, it's generally much cooler than other places. Cooler air can't hold as much moisture as warmer air, making extreme rainstorms like Tuesday's a very rare occurrence.
More monsoonal storms are likely in the next few days in Leadville and across the mountains, but it's highly unlikely that a storm of Tuesday's caliber will be in the offing again anytime soon.
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