Severe Weather Outlook Thursday

Well, this map of severe storm reports from Wednesday is fairly quiet. There was one delayed tornado report from extreme southeast Colorado.

It was in an open field and no damage was reported.

Today's map will likely be a lot busier as severe weather spreads into the central plains. There is a 10% chance of a tornado in the eastern Texas panhandle and across extreme western Oklahoma.

The 5% area reaches from northeast Colorado to southwest Texas.

The rain here in the Denver area was sure nice on Wednesday. It started as a few strong storms over the southern Denver suburbs - with small hail reported in Highlands Ranch and east of town in Bennett.

Then the storms coverted into rain with a few embedded pockets of thunder.

I woke up at 2 am to the sound of rain rolling down the gutters of the house. I had to open my window and listen!

I don't want to say rain is rare here in Denver - but we definitely have a season for rain and a season for snow.

Almost without fail, any precipitation that falls between late October and early April is snow. It has been quite a while since we have seen a good, soaking rain like what is happening right now.

Then on either side of the late October to early April window we have our transitional periods with storms starting as rain and often ending as snow. That is very common in September and late April or early May around here.

June, July and August usually bring just rain to Denver.

So this is the first real significant rain event we have seen in the Denver area since last year - and we are just loving it!!