Nature Speaks In Pictures

This photo -- meant I'm sure to be funny -- probably isn't to some.  But it isn't far off being representative of the September 2013 Colorado Floods.

In parts of the Front Range, more rain came down in a few days than usually falls here in a year and a half.

That's a lousy mix with foothills canyons.

Anyway...from a variety of sources, here's a montage of what Colorado suffered, and will bounce back from.  And yes...there are a couple laughers in here...even in the face of natural disaster, Man's humor cannot be stymied.

US 34 in the Big Thompson River canyon between Estes Park and Loveland.

More of the Big Thompson Canyon.

An aerial view of any number of Colorado towns along the Big Thompson, South Platte River, and other waterways...

When the skies opened up, "deluge" is an apt definition..and it did this repeatedly in some places over several days/nights.

One of the Colorado mountain towns that found itself cut off from the outside world.

A Colorado town parking lot, strangely reminiscent of the '05 Hurricane Katrina footage.

Colorado 72 in Coal Creek Canyon...it'll be out of action for months.

As in 1976, the Big Thompson Canyon -- and US 34 -- was devastated.  It'll be a year or more re-opening.

As the runoff moved NE along the Platte River, NE Colorado wasn't spared.

The incredible amounts of water had to go somewhere.

The summer of 2013 began with drought and raging wildfires...and ended with this.

Despite that, some photoshoppers found time for levity.

One weatherman referred to the storm as being of "biblical proportions"...one photoshopper was quick to pick up on that...

Note that the last total is just about the state's annual precipitation average.

Denver Metro was not unscathed (this is I believe in Aurora, which got several flash floods over 3-4 days).

They called it a "once every hundred year" flood.  Not quite (the 1976 disaster in Big Thompson Canyon, for example)...but more than enough for everyone caught up in it.

Still...moments to smile amidst the tears and the terror...

The clean up will be long...but clean up we will.

9 days ago, this was a sign of the times as you headed south from Wyoming...

But soon...we'll be back to this...

Just ahead of this...

Until again, spring returns to Colorado.

We'll make it.