ThorntonWeather.com junior stormchaser Bobby pursued a tornado in Weld County yesterday and provided live reports for 7News. Watch the video below (you may need to turn up the sound due to a lot of background noise).
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🙂 Okay, so maybe not but it still is kind of fun. This was taken yesterday at NCAR’s Super Science Saturday in Boulder. Channel 7 was there with their “24 / 7 Weather Experience” which was a lot of fun as it gives folks a small taste of what goes into a weather broadcast. Unfortunately Mike Nelson, author of our favorite weather book, wasn’t there when we were but this was probably the highlight of the day up at NCAR for the kids.
There was also a bit of a celebrity there too as Justin Walker from Discovery Channel’s Storm Chasers TV show was there with their Doppler On Wheels (DOW) truck – a mobile radar vehicle. Justin serves as one of the team members from the Center for Severe Weather Research that chases the storms. He in particular is tasked with placing scientific probes in the path of the tornadoes. We got to spend a good bit of time chatting with Justin about their chases this past tornado season and in particular the ones in the north central Kansas area where a good bit of my family lives. He had some fascinating anecdotes to share about the storms, in particular the one that struck near Glen Elder, KS.
For those that didn’t make it up there, you really missed a great opportunity for kids to learn more about not only the weather but also things like energy, the environment and more.
A Red Flag Warning has been issued for most of the state as warm temperatures and low humidities have increased the danger of fires getting out of control. This was witnessed first hand last week with the four wildfires in southern Colorado that quickly got out of hand.
April marks a transition between winter and summer for most of the country but for Denver it is especially true as we can see a stunning variety of weather. The proverbial April showers are certainly a possibility for Denver. Snow? Tornadoes? Thunderstorms? You bet – all can happen! For good measure throw in a chance for hail and even dust storms and April gives every type of weather condition you could like – or hate. 
First, the good news. With the extraordinary amount of snow the mountains have experienced this winter, the chances of drought are negligible for most of the state. The southeastern corner of Colorado however could see some risk.
This week NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center announced that from December 2007 to February 2008 temperatures across the United States and the globe were their coolest since 2001. In the contiguous United States, the average winter temperature was 33.2°F which ranks it as the 54th coolest winter since national records began in 1895. Globally, the combined land and ocean surface temperature was the 16th warmest on record for the period.
March in Denver typically means frequent and rapid weather changes. The days grow longer and we start enjoying more sunshine and sometimes summer-like weather. However, on occasion arctic air masses can still force their way south into Colorado dropping temperatures quickly and markedly. Occasional thunderstorms do start to happen in March as well.
An interesting 