According to the Alliance to Save Energy, the average Colorado household spent about 148 dollars on energy for home lighting in 2007.  Because there is less daylight time and indoor lighting is used more frequently, the fall season is a great time to think about increasing energy efficiency at home by replacing traditional incandescent light bulbs with compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs).

Matt’s Tip:  While a CFL bulb is more expensive at the time of purchase, it more than makes up for cost over its lifetime.  A traditional 60-watt light bulb has a lifetime of about 750 hours, but a CFL bulb will last for about 6,000 hours!  Comparing purchase price, energy costs, and the lifetime of CFL and traditional bulbs shows that a CFL bulb saves approximately 27 dollars over its lifetime. That means that replacing just the four most-used bulbs can save a typical Colorado household about 108 dollars over the lifetime of the bulbs!

Check out Energy Star’s CFL purchasing tips to find a bulb that will work well for your home lighting conditions: http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=cfls.pr_tips_cfls.

Here are a couple shots from our STORMTRACKER 13 Neighborhood Weather Network showing the beautiful fall colors over the high country.  Even though these shots are from a distance, the color over the hillsides are brilliant, enjoy…

By the way, thanks you for all of the photos you have been submitting, they are available for viewing in a slide show under the “News” tab.  Quite frankly we have been a little overwhelmed with the number of great photos coming in, makes us feel good to know that you are watching.  We have actually had some problems getting all of the images off of the servers, so the process has been a little slow, but we are making progress and many more photos will be showing up on the web site over the next 24 hours…

People generally associate a stormy sky as an ugly sky, but not this evening!  Showers and storms started over the mountains during the late morning to early afternoon and moved east.  Most storms had some lightning and heavy rain.  A couple even produced some pea-sized hail.

A storm went over Woodland Park wetting roadways, but also giving us something very pretty to look at!  A rainbow!

 

Tropical Storm Kyle is expected to strengthen into a category 1 hurricane today as it moves through warm waters in the Atlantic. As of 10:00 a.m. MDT, it had sustained winds of 70 mph.

If the computer models hold true, Kyle will be just southeast of Cape Cod early Sunday morning. It should make landfall over southern Nova Scotia by late Sunday/early Monday.

The most noticeable impacts of Kyle will likely by minor flooding and strong winds.

Earth gauge runs through a government grant…they just launched a new kids section of their website. Its geared toward older kids (5th-8th grade)…check it out!

http://www.earthgauge.net/kids/index

Here’s another awesome site that has interactive modules and a wide range of meteorology topics. This site was produced through a government grant several years ago with the University of Illinois and is called the weather world 2010 project. There’s hours of content on here and is basically a good introduction to meteorology course.

http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu 

Well today is the first day of Autumn, and I actually look foward to the increased cloud cover we often see during the moring hours of our cooler months, I really look foward to the mountain wave/lenticular clouds that become common here soon.  It isn’t that I like it cloudy so much as it is that I love the beautiful sunrises/sunsets that we end up with because of those clouds.  Here’s a sampling of that this morning as viewed from the STORMTRACKER 13 Neighborhood Weather Network, I’ve included Loveland more for the cool look at I-70 snaking through the mountains than I did for color obviously, but you get the point…

Speaking of color, thanks to John Steeger for these photos from near Florissant.  John suspects next weekend will be peak for colors in Teller County and the weather is looking pretty nice for it, so maybe a trip up thataway for a short weekend getaway?  Have a great day!

 
We are continuing to monitor the tropical disturbance.  The Reconnaissance Aircraft went into the storm and reported surface winds between 30 and 35 mph.  The storm is showing signs of organization, however the data also shows the system does not yet have a well-defined surface circulation.  The storm is expected to continue to move toward the northwest.  The disturbance could become a Tropical Depression anytime now.  The center of this storm is now centered over Central and Western Puerto Rico.

Today is the final day of summer with fall officially arriving tomorrow morning at 9:44 a.m. MDT. Other than a slight cool down for Tuesday and Wednesday, it’s really not going to feel like fall with high temperatures in the 70s and 80s throughout the week. But those cooler temperatures will be here before you know it. The mean date of the first freeze for Colorado Springs is October 4th and for Pueblo it’s October 7th. For a link to more freeze/frost information from the National Weather Service, click here.

 
There is a tropical wave producing widespread clouds and showers over the Lesser Antillies.  This system is showing some organization and could become a Tropical Depression over the next couple of days.  An Air Force Reserve Unit Reconnaissance Aircraft is scheduled to check out the tropical wave tomorrow.  Even if this system does not become a Tropical Depression, it is expected to produce heavy rain for the Lesser Antillies, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico through the day tomorrow.

As you’ve probably heard, we here at KRDO are teaming up with the American Red Cross for “KRDO Cares”. On Monday from 5 a.m. until 7 p.m., we will be collecting money at our studios for Hurricane Ike victims.
The impact from Ike was felt as far away as Ohio where some 70,000 Columbus, Ohio, residents were still without power as of this morning. The remnants of Ike tore through Columbus last weekend, packing 75 mph winds that knocked out power to 425,000 Columbus residents. I mention this because Columbus is my hometown and my family still lives there. My mom told me that they finally got power back on Wednesday but not before everything in their fridge had spoiled.
Below is a picture from Columbus Dispatch photographer Doral Chenoweth III. This was the sight on just about every street in Columbus. I’m glad we didn’t have to deal with anything like that here!

For a link to more pictures from the Columbus Dispatch, click here.