The soaking, wet weather that began yesterday evening and is expected to run well into tomorrow has caused numerous event cancellations. Now it has claimed another victim – the City of Thornton’s annual Thorntonfest.

Having already received nearly 2 inches of rain in the past twelve hours the Margaret Carpenter Recreation Center fields are absolutely drenched.  Much more precipitation is on the way with no time for the fields to dry before Thorntonfest’s events were to start Saturday morning.

Mayor Heidi Williams announced on Facebook:

Unfortunately the weather has not cooperated with us and for the second time in 22 years, we are forced to cancel MOST of Thorntonfest due to saturated fields. There are 3 (possibly 4) components of the event that we are planning to move forward with:

• The Cottonwood Classic 5K will go ahead as scheduled at 8 a.m. on Saturday, May 20, at the Thorncreek Crossing Shopping Center.
• The Rocky Mountain Dock Dogs competition will go ahead as scheduled on Saturday/Sunday, May 20 & 21. It will be moved into the parking lot south of the Carpenter Park multipurpose fields.
• The Battle of the Bands Competition will go ahead as scheduled in the Carpenter Park Amphitheater, with the bands performing from 10:20 a.m. to 5 p.m.
• The Canine Frisbee Competition hopes to go forward, as it is a regional competition and people are coming from out-of-state to participate. We are hoping to move them to Woodglen Park because it drains well. However, because the weather is supposed to continue through tomorrow, this decision won’t be made until Saturday morning.

The website will be updated with all of these changes, so the public will be advised to check the website if interested in any of these venues.