DENVER — While Colorado is used to getting all sorts of wacky weather, you may not think a hurricane would necessarily impact our skies and temperatures.
You also may not think Colorado would feel the impacts from two hurricanes in a single week.
Well, Colorado's about to feel the indirect and direct wrath from two separate (remnant) hurricanes.
The first comes from what was Hurricane Ida, which lashed the Louisiana coastline with flooding rain, storm surge and winds well in excess of 100 mph on Sunday.
Hurricanes are, in short, really strong areas of low pressure. Weather comes from nature essentially trying to balance itself out.
So when you've got a really strong area of low pressure in one place - like Hurricane Ida - you'll likely have an unusually strong area of high pressure somewhere else. That balancing area of high pressure is anchored over the Western U.S. this week.
The result for Colorado? Extra sinking air and subsidence from a stronger area of high pressure, due in part to Ida off to our east.
In non-weather speak, that means we'll be extra hot this week, with high temperatures flirting with records on both Tuesday and Wednesday in eastern Colorado.
The second hurricane is impacting us in a fairly typical way we feel the impacts from hurricanes in Colorado. A dying hurricane, Nora, and its remnant moisture are getting picked up in the annual monsoon.
That'll help boost our rainfall coverage and totals later this week, especially in central and western Colorado.
That could shut down Interstate 70 at Glenwood Canyon yet again, as the flood-prone stretch of highway looks to be in the path of this week's heavy rainfall. If you're planning on using I-70 for Labor Day weekend, you might want to have an alternative highway or destination in mind.
So if this week's weather feels a little extra strange, you can blame it - at least in part - on two hurricanes.
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