The ongoing impacts of climate change have affected humans, animals, and plant life across the US and all over the world. In Colorado more than a decade of drought, wildfires, and dangerous air pollution levels have plagued us. This winter the climate crisis reached a disturbing crescendo and then exploded across the Front Range.

On December 23, much-needed rain began falling across the West Slope turning to snow the next day, with snowfall continuing through early this very morning, New Year's Day. Occasionally there were breaks but for the most part it has rained or snowed every day somewhere on the West Slope for the past 10 days. Not to mention frigid winter temps ranging from 10 to 35 degrees.

Meanwhile across the Continental Divide along the tinder dry Front Range, temps were stuck in the 40s and 50s, at times soaring into the 60s, with no rain or snow in sight. Yet plenty of wind to due to the wild winter weather raging across the West from the Sierras through the Rockies. Though for some strange reason, blowing past the Front Range.

Until the morning of December 30 …

Hurricane force winds roared down from the mountains across the Front Range. Though the cause is yet unknown, something sparked a grass fire and quickly spread to the towns of Superior and Louisville becoming the most destructive wildfire in Colorado history -- the Marshall Fire. More than 500 homes and businesses burned. A tragedy beyond comprehension.

VIDEO: Marshall Fire flyover: Damage seen from above in Boulder County

On December 30, Colorado State University meteorologist Russ Schumacher tweeted: "From June 1-Dec 29, the Front Range has been the warmest on record (by far), and among the driest. These conditions set the stage for today's historic, tragic, devastating fires."

Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at UCLA and researcher at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, described the fires as "climate enabled and weather-driven." On Friday, he tweeted that he woke up to the "overwhelmingly acrid smell of burnt homes."

"Climate change is clearly increasing both temperatures [and] vapor pressure deficits across [the] Western U.S.," Swain tweeted.

Read more here: Climate changes linked to Colorado's fire disaster

On December 31, snow fell at last up and down the Front Range.

The aftershocks remain on this New Year's Day 2022. Underneath a fresh blanket of snow grief rumbles across Colorado. Deeply woven into our New Year's sentiments and celebrations is a shared sense of loss. And a fresh realization. This can happen to anyone.

2022 has one clear message for us -- climate crisis is here.