Good looking morning in Breckenridge, just enjoying the snow-capped mountains with some changing trees (which admittedly are tough to see in the low light).  Anyway, looks like a nice weekend for a trip to the mountains…

Moving on, this was just comical as we went on air at noon.  Keep in mind that this view is from “Mug-a-Bug Pest Control”, business to be had right outside the door!  Have a great weekend everyone!

Zach cracks me up, for not being a weather guy he sure gets excited about the weather sometimes.  I asked him which sunrise shot he wanted and he jumped at Denver, in this case I can’t blame him, he also has an eye for nature and he was quite excited about this look from Denver, check it out…

We’ve actually seen this quite often but we’re not always able to time it just right for show on TV.  In a sort of tongue-in-cheek way I asked him what was wrong with our sunrise and suggested he just likes Denver better.  I know he likes it here, but it’s fun to give each other a hard time on occasion.  Here’s a look at the sunrise over Colorado Springs.

I guess Denver’s image was a little cooler, I need another camera just east of downtown Colorado Springs so I can get some sun reflections locally too, I like that effect!  Have a great day…

Well my favorite publication is out (it actually has some entertaining reading) again this year and the prediction for winter 2008/2009 in the high plains colder & drier than normal (map, pg. 80). While that may work out (I’m not going to pretend to know…its hard enough to get the next 7 days right!), what I find most interesting about their predicition for the country is a small packet of mild & snowy weather in Kansas and Missouri, that is completely surrounded by colder than average temperatures through the winter. Unless there is a slew of Old Faithful type geysers popping up that I haven’t heard about in these two states, I can’t think of how that would happen physically. North, South, East and West of this area is below average, but these two states enjoy a mild winter? I really can’t even make up a way for that to happen!!! I’ll look for the map on the internet and post it if I find it.

The folks at the Climate Prediction Center have the following outlook for our three months of winter:

The image on the left shows the temperature forecast versus average (we look to have a 20%-40% chance of ending up above average) while on the right the precipitation forecast says we look to have equal chances of being above or below normal for precipitation.

Take them both for what they’re worth…we’ll see!

I got a pretty good email question from John in Peyton last week. He wanted to know, “Have the remnants of Hurricanes ever made it to Colorado. I remember hearing something to that extent several years ago, it wasn’t severe weather or anything, but I was just wondering?”

Its a good question John! The answer is yes, but not very often. Nothing has ever made it here as an official tropical system (Tropical Depression, Tropical Storm or Hurricane), but the remnants of several eastern Pacific systems have produced decent rainfall in the past.

The graphic above shows the path of all tropical systems since 1851. I’ve highlighted a few in bright green that have gotten close to Colorado as dying tropical depressions. At least three of those brighter green tracks you see to the southwest of the state, did produce moderate to heavy rain events as they moved through Colorado, but you can see that they had weakend below trackable tropical depressions when they did so. They were just areas of higher moisture content when they arrived to our home state.

I’ve annoted the large scale weather features aloft over North America when Ike made landfall late Friday evening. Notice the typical west to east (jetstream) flow that was pushing our weather maker (remember all of that rain!) through the state late last week. As tropical systems move northward from the Atlantic Basin and the Gulf of Mexico, they get caught up in the westerlies and never make it to our state. Note in the path graphic at the beginning of this post that one lonely storm actually managed to make it into central Kansas from the Gulf, but that is as close as anything has gotten.

However, storms in the eastern Pacific basin and the Baja Penninsula or Gulf of California will occasionally get caught up in these westerlies to our southwest and eventually move into our state. We’re far enough away from the fuel source of tropical cyclones (warm acean water) that they are all weaker than tropical depressions by the time they arrive, but the answer to John’s question is yes! It does happen, but rarely. Thanks for the email John and if you ever have anything you’d like me or any of the other STORMTRACKERS to answer you can leave a comment below or send an email!

All of the shots from the STORMTRACKER 13  Neighborhood Weather Network were really nice this morning and early this afternoon, I just like looking at the snow on the peaks most.  Keystone and Pikes Peak round out this morning’s looks…

We had a cold front pass over us during the overnight hours. It led to high temperatures about 15 degrees cooler than what we enjoyed on Saturday.

Behind the front, we saw some cloud development after daybreak thanks to a weak upslope flow. The clouds for the most part broke up by the afternoon.

Colorado Springs, however, continued to see mostly cloudy skies until about 3:30 or 4:00 p.m. The clouds helped to keep the already cooler temperatures down. The pictures below are from about 2:30 this afternoon.

Temperatures should warm pretty significantly over the coming days along with plentiful sunshine thanks to a ridge of high pressure. Enjoy!

Hurricane Ike made landfall early Saturday morning as a Category 2 hurricane with wind gusts around the region between 75 and 100 mph. The storm did plenty of damage in Texas and Louisiana and now poses a threat to the Mississippi Valley. Our Hurricane Tracker shows the center of the storm over Arkansas early Sunday morning, tracking to the northeast over the next couple of days. The remnants should be north of Ohio by Monday morning. As it tracks to the northeast, it will likely create flooding in portions of the Midwest that have already had a half of foot of rain from other storms over the past few days. Forecasting weather in Ohio, I often tracked the remnants of hurricanes headed my way. I’m sure my former co-workers in Lima, Ohio, are keeping a close eye on the remains of Ike.

At least it wasn’t snowing here, we had enough problems with rain.  Chain restrictions over the Eisenhower Tunnel and Vail Pass, I’d bet there is some snow on top of Pikes Peak as well, it won’t be too much longer, sigh…  Here are some of the images captured from the STORMTRACKER 13 Neighborhood Weather Network, I suppose it looks pretty anyway…

STORMTRACKER 13 Live HD Doppler picked up on the snow over the high country this morning.  On the image below snow is represented by the blue radar returns, pink shows where there may be a mixture of rain and snow.

This is a good time to remind you that we have a new feature here at krdo.com called My HD Doppler where you can track storms with an interactive user interface.  It’s the best tracking tool you’ll find locally on the web, have fun with it!

We often receive e-mails from various agencies that are relevant to significant weather, one of those is from NASA and they often have some great photographs of hurricanes as well as some interesting presentations.  Here’s a link to one of the sites…

 Hurricane Ike

We’re putting the power in your hands. Its storm tracking taken to a whole new level. Just like we do, you’ll very soon be able to track storms into your neighborhood. Heavy rainfall, rotation, hail size, snow, drizzle, precipitation totals…its all at your fingertips. We’ve worked hard on this and are excited to bring it to you…MY HD DOPPLER, only on krdo.com!