Brief but sometimes torrential rainstorms yesterday brought relief to Summit County and a 13-hour power outage to most of Eagle County.
Holy Cross Energy confirms a lightning strike around 4 p.m. on Tuesday hit a major transmission line owned by Xcel Energy. This cut the power to “thousands” of customers from Vail to Gypsum, spanning almost the entire width of Eagle County.
Four hours later, at 8:26 p.m., an Xcel crew pinpointed the outage and confirmed it was caused by lightning. Workers spent the next hour hiking to the damaged line. At one point they thought it might need a helicopter and daylight to repair.
Five and a half hours later, at 9:30 p.m., an update from Holy Cross confirmed Xcel would not wait for the morning, but working by headlamp would not be easy.
“Crews will continue to work into the night to restore power to affected members,” the update reads. “We do not have a current time of restoration available from Xcel but anticipate that power will be restored tomorrow morning.”
At 5:30 a.m. Holy Cross confirmed power was returning in waves. By 7:45 a.m. the online outage map showed power was back for most.
Rain relief
In Summit County the rainstorms were fleeting but welcome.
The Krystalized Weather Station in Dillon showed about one-tenth of an inch on Tuesday. It was the first measurable rain there in 12 days and the second measurable rain in 42 days.
Wunderground weather stations in Breck reported slightly more moisture. Other neighborhoods reported slightly less.
And yet the record books will show the dry streak continues. The official record-keeping station in Dillon, known as Dillon 1 E, reports no rain since June 27.
Still burning
On the Willow Fire west of Leadville there were no new fires reported from lightning, but stormy winds yesterday did fan the flames. It grew by about 180 acres, to 4,333 acres, now with 10% containment.
On the Aspen Acres Fire south of Pueblo the fire grew by about 2,000 acres, to 96,031 acres with 15% containment, when weather split over the fire.
Weather was working with fire crews on the southern edge near Colorado City. On the northern edge, near smaller neighborhoods in the forested hills, weather was working against them.
“We do currently have quite a few storm cells tracking north over the fire and south over the fire,” Zach Fleming with the fire team said in a briefing last night. “It’s going to be a little unpredictable for the firefighters out there.”
Dry lightning fires
Dry lightning yesterday sparked at least two confirmed fires near Rifle and Fort Carson.
Garfield County Sheriff investigated the reports near Rifle with no new information this morning. The fire near Fort Carson burned about five acres in Cheyenne Mountain State Park before it was extinguished, The Gazette confirms.
Preview image via University of Alabama.