A major rain and hail storm that moved through Denver International Airport on Sunday made it the wettest day there in nearly 19 months.
In one hour, DIA saw 0.81 inches of rainfall — and that one hour alone made it the observation site’s wettest day since Sept. 23, 2017. DIA officially saw a total of 0.82 inches of rainfall on Sunday.
Technically, this makes it Denver’s wettest day on record in over a year and a half as well, since Denver’s official weather records are kept at DIA. That said, most of the metro area saw less than a quarter inch of rainfall on Sunday, as the highest totals were heavily concentrated right around the airport and points east.
Front Range rainfall map from yesterday shows very few places got anywhere close to the official 0.82 inches of rain we received in Denver. Sunday was our wettest day since September 2017 according to the rain gauge at DIA. #cowx #4wx @ChrisCBS4 pic.twitter.com/0GATs3xrmw
— Ashton Altieri (@AshtonCBS) April 22, 2019
Perhaps what stood out with the rain was less about the wettest day record and more about the unusually heavy rain rates that led to the total. According to the National Weather Service office in Boulder, DIA saw an astounding 0.52 inches of rain in just 10 minutes, an unusually intense rainfall rate for the Denver area. Ample moisture along a rapidly developing line of storms helped fuel these high rain rates.
RELATED: How do official weather measurements compare at DIA, downtown Denver and Stapleton?
The storm that moved over DIA last hour produced 0.52" of rain in 10 minutes and 0.81" over 27 minutes! The stronger storms will continue to produce briefly heavy rain this afternoon. #COwx pic.twitter.com/KyGJyZAi1w
— NWS Boulder (@NWSBoulder) April 21, 2019
The same storms went on to produce up to golf ball-sized hail in Flagler, covering the ground along parts of Interstate 70.
After a cloudy and cool day on Monday, however, sunshine and above average temperatures dominate the rest of the week’s forecast.
Chris Bianchi is a meteorologist for WeatherNation TV.
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