Clouds and Climate

I must first start this post off with an apology for my tardiness; I am ashamed to admit that I was recently diagnosed with a disease and just started a medication that seems to make me sick.

On that note, I am posting about cloud cover and the general climate in Calhan, CO
I made a trip to my location this past friday to do some cloud watching and snapped a few photos of the cloud cover.

I took this picture right when I got to the Paint Mines at 10am. This is a combination of cumulus clouds (low-level puffy) and stratus clouds (low-level shapeless). If you look close enough you can also see a bit of virga (evaporated clouds) in those clouds closest to the horizon line.

This is an altocumulus cloud (mid-level puffy).

This is a nice plump combination of a stratocumulus and cumulus clouds.

After a bit of simply research, I discovered some average climates for Calhan from weatherspark.com, which compiled data from the city's weather station, the Elicot-B Afa from 2008-2012. I found a few graphs, one displaying the average dew point and one displaying wind speed. 

With dew point we know that lower dew points are drier and higher dew points are humid. This graph shows the dew point over the course of a year. July clearly sees the most rainfall and plays the largest factor in the evolution of the Paint Mines Interpretive Park. 

Dew Point

Wind Speed

This graph shows the typical wind speeds over the course of the year with speeds varying from 0 mph to 25 mph. Wind does not play a factor in the evolution of the Paint Mines' landscape.