On Saturday, Colorado recorded a temperature of 101 degrees, breaking all past records. The weekend continued the summer’s 90s spree; and on Monday, Labor Day, Colorado tied for the most days with 90-or-more degrees registered (the previous 73 day record was in 2012). Then the temperatures dropped Monday night and the high for Tuesday was 46 degrees, which was reached at midnight Tuesday morning.
Farmers as well as home garden owners had been struggling all year with drought weather conditions, and now they were rushing to either pick the last of their crops or bring in their plants in pots and flower boxes. On Wednesday, Robyn Sloan, Lyons, measured four inches of snow and .68 in precipitation, which reflected how wet and heavy the snow was. Pinewood Springs measured four to six inches of snow, which broke the 10 inches of snow prediction of the meteorologists. However, the storm did begin with rain, and much of the snow melted when it hit the ground due to the previously hot weather, so it might otherwise have been taller snow mounds. But enough was left to weigh down and break tree branches all over Lyons. The Town of Lyons maintenance crew spent several hours picking up broken branches from its parks on Wednesday.
Lesley Lal Jowett asked in a post on Facebook Lyons Happenings who thought that they had brought in the most plants to prevent them from freezing too early in the season. Many amazing tales were posted: Angie Dickerson was in the contention for winning when she stated that she had to use not only the dining room, but the upstairs and the back room. Ben Jammin used two back rooms, and a basement crawl space. Kaitlyn Fischer had the bathroom, shower and entire counter filled. James Morton put his cars outside so his garage could hold the flowers. Jeanette Carroll Metzner had 18 pots of flowers in her living and dining rooms. Laila Rose filled her mud room with a dozen big and small plants, and then had to fight to get her boots out for the next day.
Gardeners had to chose whether to find huge tarps to cover their plants or just harvest everything they could. Erin Lee Whicker cut down all her patio tomatoes: 11 plants of seven varieties. She filled her unheated garage with flowers piled up and crossing fingers for survivors. Marissa Rae had a bushel full of basil. She said the scent will be gone in two or three days, but the earwigs will be gone…never!
