Monday, March 31, 2008

A Commute with Multiple Seasons' worth of Weather Conditions

Temperatures from 30 to 42 degrees. Sunny, windy, snowy, rainy, steamy and overcast.

My commute to work and back home let me experience just about all the weather conditions one can encounter when riding in Colorado year round, the only thing I missed was being hailed on!

The ride in was cold with temperatures not getting above 32 degrees with "moist" looking roads for the first few miles. Our high altitude and low humidity though did away with the moisture and the roads to work were pretty much dry at the halfway point. There was still the occasional snowflake but that's it.

The temperatures was in 30s most of the morning, climbing into the high 30s/low 40s by the afternoon, mostly overcast with occasional bursts of sunshine when the clouds allowed it through.

It was flurrying when I geared up and started riding for home. I rode in these flurries which became a very soft rain towards the end of the commute. Sunshine was sporadic throughout the ride home and at points heated up the pavement enough to cause the melted snowflakes on the road to steam up and create little fog banks that one rode through. Kind of neat in a way.

It started snowing a bit harder as I stopped at the bank for an errand but when I came out it was bright sunshine once again. Freaky.

As I write this, it's snowing harder again but still mainly flurries and it's not sticking to the roads. Sure am glad we're not getting the severe weather the eastern part of the nation is being hit with today.

So, got sunshine, rain, snow flurries, windy and cold and even some rising steam from the pavement. Colorado sure makes for some diverse weather, all in one day!

Mileage Note: Ending March with 52,843 miles on Maria's odometer, that's 2209 miles accumulated since the end of February according to my riding log.

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