Denver Weather Watch

Should the Dems be a little bit nervous about the Obamessiah's big outdoor speech on August 28th? I just checked the 10 day forecast, and this is what weather.com has:

So, if it rains (or storms), does the show go on?

WASHINGTON — Democrats are hoping for an open-air sendoff of Barack Obama on Aug. 28 as big as the Colorado sky. But what if Denver's heavens open up with a thunderstorm, as they can do on late-summer evenings on the Rockies' eastern slopes?

"Rain or shine," Obama will speak outdoors at Invesco Field at Mile High, said Natalie Wyeth, press secretary for the Democratic National Convention.

But rain isn't always the worst Mother Nature can do.

"I moved to Colorado in 1994, and my first day of school in Denver it snowed a foot. In September," said Dan Smith, a University of Florida political scientist and former Colorado resident.

Obama will deliver the first outdoor speech to accept the presidential nomination since John F. Kennedy spoke in the Los Angeles Coliseum in 1960. Tens of thousands of delegates and supporters are expected to gather in the home of the Denver Broncos football team.

A comfortable evening could be the perfect backdrop for a scene of cheering crowds that Obama's planners are hoping for. But a storm like the one on Aug. 8 would unleash a torrent of rain-on-parade metaphors, if nothing else. That drought-buster dumped more than two inches of rain in less than an hour near the stadium at roughly the time of the evening Obama is scheduled to speak.

"That would not have been a good day" for an outdoor speech, said Colorado state climatologist Nolan Doesken.

Democrats checked the last 20 years of weather, Wyeth said, determining that the average high is about 84 and that only about a tenth of an inch of rain falls on or near the date in a normal year. The convention-week forecast is for mostly warm and dry weather.

"The odds are in favor of good weather," said Doesken, who has studied Colorado weather for more than 30 years.

"That time of year, the typical day will see temperatures climb into the 80s and a typical night will drop off into the 50s."

But, he warned, "We also know weird things can happen."

I think all good Republicans should do a little rain dance every day and let's hope Mother Gaia opens up and really drenches all those overheated Democrats. It would be like watching Woodstock all over again.