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U.S. Department of Commerce logo and link to site Climate of 2003 - October
Colorado Drought

National Climatic Data Center, 14 November 2003

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Pre-instrumental prespective for western Colorado

Statewide Precipitation Ranks
for Colorado , 2002-2003
Period Rank
Oct 6th driest
Sep-Oct 19th driest
Aug-Oct 21st driest
Jul-Oct 7th driest
Jun-Oct 19th driest
May-Oct 17th driest
Apr-Oct 15th driest
Mar-Oct 28th driest
Feb-Oct 36th driest
Jan-Oct 29th driest
Dec-Oct 21st driest
Nov-Oct 20th driest
 precipitation departures, January 1998 - present
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Palmer Z Index, January 1998 - present
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precipitation, October 1895-2003
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 Palmer Hydrological Drought Index, January 1900 - October 2003
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Pre-instrumental Perspective from Western Colorado:

Three gages on tributaries of the upper Colorado River (Blue, Fraser, and Williams Fork Rivers) were reconstructed and summed for this annual streamflow reconstruction. Tree-ring chronologies sites were updated in June 2003 to enable the reconstructions to extent to 2002 and thus reflecting the 2002 drought. The graph shows the full reconstruction, 1427-2002, with annual values in gray and smoothed values in dark blue. Also shown are the gage values, smoothed, in pink. Not visible because of smoothing, but the reconstructed value for 2002 closely matched the gage value. The 2002 streamflow value is among the lowest flows in the record, but is not the lowest. Flow for 2003 is still below average for the Upper Colorado River basin.
The reconstructions can be found here: http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/streamflow/reconstructions.html 		graphic showing reconstruction of Colorado river from treerings
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Graphic showing NOAA logo NCDC / Clim. Monitoring / Climate-2003 / Oct / U.S. Regional Drought / Search / Help

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Last Updated Wednesday, 20-Aug-2008 12:22:37 EDT by Richard.Heim@noaa.gov
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