Flooding in Colorado, September 2013

The Colorado front-range recently experienced historic and devastating flooding. Areas near Boulder, Lyons, and Longmont, Colorado were the most affected by the flooding that took place. 

To illustrate the significance of the flooding that took place, a graph comprised of three line plots was created in Grapher. The graph (below) displays the recorded discharge (cubic feet per second) at several USGS stream gauge locations in the area affected by the flooding.

This graph shows the last 365 days of stream gauge data from 3 sites downstream of the areas hit hardest by the flood. As you can see, this flood event led to stream discharge that was three to five times greater than the highest levels seen during the spring 2013 run-off season.

The Golden Software office is located approximately 20 miles south of Boulder, in Golden, CO. The rain events which caused much of the flooding were localized in the area around Boulder, CO. The water levels in Clear Creek, which runs through Golden, were not impacted in the same way as those near Boulder. Though we experienced heavy rainfall, there was little flooding in the immediate vicinity of our office building. Our offices, are located above the flood plain in downtown Golden. None of the homes of the Golden Software staff were impacted by the flood events.

We at Golden Software wish a smooth recovery to those impacted by the flooding.

USGS stream gauge data for Colorado is available from the National Water Information System. LINK

The specific data used to generate the Grapher plots can be found here:

Boulder Creek at N. 75th Street in Boulder, CO 

Big Thomson River at Loveland, CO

St. Vrain Creek below Longmont, CO

You may also be interested to read this newsletter article for Exelis VIS about how the Colorado floods have impacted how we use geospatial data. You can access the article through this LINK.