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How the extreme shifts in weather are impacting our community

Over the past couple years, life has become a perpetual cycle of ups and downs. More often than not, whenever there seems to be a positive story in the news or an uplifting movement on social media, it turns out to be the calm before the storm. For the residents of Superior and Louisville, the Marshall Fire changed everything. As a community, there was nothing we could do besides look on in shock as the Marshall Fire swept through Superior and Louisville on December 30th.

I live in Broomfield, right on the edge of Superior. I parked my car at the bus stop in downtown Louisville before I went out of town for the holidays. All I could do was watch and hope for the best with my family as I waited to hear from my neighbors if our apartment building had burned down. However, I was more worried about my car because I had no way to determine its condition and it was in the heart of the fire. Upon arrival, I was relieved to find my car undamaged. The bushes and trees directly in front of my car were charred and blackened. The stripmall across the parking lot was gone. I opened my car and all I could smell was smoke. The stench lasted for several weeks and outlasted many air fresheners. However, my story is nothing compared to the hundreds who lost their homes, but it just shows how much this has affected the entire community. 

According to the �鶹ӰԺ Office of Emergency Management, 1,084 residential structures were destroyed, including 550 in Louisville, 378 in Superior, and 156 in unincorporated �鶹ӰԺ County and the total damage to homes is estimated to be upwards of $513 million. Unpredictable disasters can be disorienting when you look around the place you grew up and all you see is ash. Cars looking like they were just hit by a bomb and the blackened remains of homes you once visited on Halloween. 

As if this tragedy wasn’t enough, fewer than 24hrs after the fire began, the entire area was covered in a thick blanket of snow. “The snow can be positive and a hindrance,” said Rocco Snart, the branch chief for the Colorado Division of Fire Prevention and Control. The sudden snowfall inhibited the fire from spreading as quickly as it had the day prior with the 100+mph winds. However, it inhibited most of the clean up efforts and blocked the Colorado National Guard from securing the impacted area successfully. Not to mention the hundreds of displaced citizens who now found themselves homeless and shivering just days before the new year. 

Like adding salt to a wound, the first warm spring day in �鶹ӰԺ resulted in the NCAR fire. The �鶹ӰԺ Office of Emergency Management reportedly evacuated 1,629 people, including 699 housing units and 836 buildings by 11:08pm on March 26th. �鶹ӰԺ fire rescue crews were able to 100% contain this fire by March 31st, but not before it took hold of 190 acres southwest of the city’s Table Mesa neighborhood, near the National Center for Atmospheric Research. The sporadic weather trends are nothing new to Colorado; however, the scale, intensity, and consistency of these recent fires has the entire state sitting on edge.

Leading up to Christmas, the month of December was littered with 60 degree days and very little snowfall throughout the state of Colorado. The total snowpack was 0% going into 2022. Due to the late snowfall and previous years droughts, most of the state is experiencing an intensifying drought, classified as an “extreme D3 drought which has lasted a while” says Assistant State Climatologist Becky Bolinger. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) cites that “the extreme drought category, D3, corresponds to an area where major crop and pasture losses are common, fire risk is extreme, and widespread water shortages can be expected requiring restrictions.” These extremes seem to be increasing to the point of regularity and the cumulative impact can be dire. This long term environmental shift in water consistency is what set the stage for the Marshall Fire to be so destructive. 

Within the next few weeks, there was a sudden reversal, with NOAA reporting that the total snowpack was at 127% of the average by the end of January. Currently, Colorado is at 104% of the average snowpack. However, the sudden shift does not mean we are back on track. Trends often happen across multiple years, so it will take a few good years to cancel out an extreme drought. These trends are begging us to ask the questions, what will happen if we do not get a giant snowfall to combat the lengthy droughts? What will our summers look like when that happens? Since mountains serve as natural ‘water towers’ that fill our reservoirs and supply us with fresh drinking water, if the towers run dry, will fires dominate our landscape?

These sporadic changes in our typical precipitation patterns have had both an immediate and prolonged impact on the people and industries of Colorado. This is perhaps most prominent and relatable during the skiing and snowboarding season. Some of the most lively and entertaining places in the winter are the mountain resorts. Unfortunately, with the minimal snowfall early this season, the only runs open at nearly every resort were the manmade groomers which were a limited departure from the typical Colorado experience. On December 18th, I took a trip up to Eldora, “�鶹ӰԺ’s Backyard,” to see how bad it really was. There were 12/65 trails open, it was a dismal day of rocks and grass along the mountain side. But then, like the changing of the tides, waves of snow began to fall, and with it, trouble. 

As usual, there have been countless I-70 closures this season due to the heavy snow and icy conditions which greatly impacts the ski traffic and the infrastructural safety of the freeway. According to the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT),  differing combinations of sand, a sand/salt mixture, and various liquid anti-icers and de-icers are used to combat differing intensities of winter conditions. A major problem with these types of extreme back and forth conditions is a drastic increase in potholes. Potholes form due to the freezing and thawing of water on roads, sound familiar?  CDOT is responsible for maintaining and plowing all interstates and US highways, as well as most state highways with approximately 1,800 trained maintenance personnel. Closures are largely attributable to the inconsistent and often unique weather events. 

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) the salts used on the roads runoff into the surrounding areas and nearby streams leading to further negative environmental impacts such as “contaminate drinking water, kill or endanger wildlife, increase soil erosion, and damage private and public property.” 

These fires & blizzards have shaken our community to its core, and they have everybody anxious about what the future might hold. However, we are �鶹ӰԺ Strong! There isn’t much this crazy world can throw at us that we are not capable of overcoming so long as we stick together. Moving forward we will need to adopt a new mindset. Murphy’s Law states anything that can go wrong, will go wrong. This motto has become today’s standard and should be used as the rule of thumb when planning for the future. Expect the unexpected and you will never be surprised.

We had better get used to going through changes because they do not seem to be slowing down. In reality they are becoming more frequent and impactful on our everyday lives. For the younger generations who have lived through  9/11, the 2008 financial collapse, a worldwide pandemic, and the dismantling of peace in Europe all before turning 30 years old, it is nothing strange to be living in an uncertain time with continuous turmoil. 

Heat, snow, and drought records are being broken annually. In Denver, a 123 year old temperature record fell on February 23st. Lows reached a frigid -7 °F, breaking the previous record of -4 ° F set in 1899. Nobody alive today was alive when this record was set. We are living in unprecedented times and the future is uncertain. However, if we stick together like we did during the Marshall Fire and all the other so-called “apocalypses,” I am confident we will overcome whatever may lie ahead of us.