Cheyenne NWS: Flash Flood Watch Issued For Areas Including Laramie

The Cheyenne Office of the National Weather Service has issued a flash flood watch for the mountains near the Mullen Burn Scar Area in southeast Wyoming.

The watch area includes the communities of Laramie, Centennial, Saratoga, and Encampment in Wyoming.

As of 10:20 this morning, Cheyenne was not included in the flash flood watch, but parts of Interstate 80 in the area of the Mullen Burn Scar were included.

The agency posted this statement on its website:

”Numerous showers and thunderstorms are expected Friday beginning early in the afternoon along the higher terrain continuing through the early evening. There is a Flash Flooding Risk mainly in the mountains near the Mullen Burn Scar area. Please do not drive in flooded waters, avoid low spots in hilly terrain, and avoid these recently burned areas!”

The Mullen Fire raged in southern Wyoming and northern Colorado in the fall of 2020, burning over 176,000 acres.

Areas burned over by wildfires tend to be more prone to flash flooding, in part because they tend to repel water and lack the vegetation that would normally absorb some of the water and slow the water flow.

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