I Miss the Rain

We haven't had a good rain since September.  Not a gentle, therapeutic, rhythmic rain, nor a thundering, pounding, soul stirring rain.  I miss the rain.  The weather seems to contradict itself in Colorado.  We have had many strings of sunny days in the 50s, 60s and 70s since September, but no rain.  We've had days that have come close to topping out at 80, only to have it crash the next day followed by snow.   Precipitation in the winter seems to only follow these severe crashes and fall in the form of snow.  March is supposedly the snowiest month of the year in Colorado Springs, which would likely make an outsider shudder, but what they don't realize is that these short lived snowstorms are almost always preceded and followed by days of extremely dry, sunny, and mild weather, often in the 60s.  But it does not rain.  It likely will not rain with much conviction until early summer, and even then it doesn't really get kicking until mid to late summer, when the Colorado monsoon season begins and every afternoon brings the potential for some serious lighting storms often accompanied by hail and buckets of water.  It's a fantastic show to watch, and even better knowing that within an hour or so it will blow through, the sun will be back out and the only way to know that a storm blew through is the 20 degree temperature drop.  Open your windows and you are convinced you have central air.  The rain tempers the summer heat just as the lack of it brings a warm brightness to our winters. 

                                    Late August storms in the Wet Mountains, Westcliffe, Colorado