I had a wonderful visit to Soaring Eagles Elementary on Friday with all 4 of the first grade classes. Teachers and students alike made me feel very welcome and actively participated in our discussion of water, clouds and precipitation [I'm still waiting for your homework assignments! ]. I’d like to share a few pictures with you, that I think shows how awesome my Friday afternoon was!

The image you see below is one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen! Its a touch screen sort of “white-erase board” that allows you to work the laptop that is on the stand you see on the right side of the screen. This allowed me to show the kids several things on krdo.com, while navigating myself at the screen and by switching modes also allowed me to “draw” on the screen with several different colored pens. They sat at the bottom of the screen, along with an eraser and by picking them up individually, the computer was aware of what color I wanted and then by touching the screen would “draw” the appropriate lines. If I made a mistake, the electronic eraser would allow me to start over….VERY COOL and thanks to everyone at Soaring Eagles!

Josh showed you in the previous post that temperatures this morning were 10 to 20 degrees warmer than Saturday morning. He also showed you the cold front that was pushing through this morning from the northeast. We hit our highs early in the day before the cold front moved through.

At about 4pm, after the cold front came through, temperatures were significantly colder than they were at 4pm yesterday (Saturday).

Temperatures tomorrow should be pretty close to seasonal averages for this time of year. Then a big warm-up for the rest of the week!

What a warm day it was Saturday with highs in the 70s and 80s for Colorado Springs and Pueblo! The warmth continued this morning with temperatures in some spots about 20 degrees milder than where they were Saturday morning. Around 8:00 a.m. at our studios temperatures were in the mid 50s.

The late-October warmth will take a backseat to temperatures closer to seasonal averages for the next day or so. We were tracking a cold front this morning that began working into the northeast plains and was continuing to slide southward as I was writing this post. As you can see on the satellite/radar composite, we weren’t seeing any precipitation with this frontal passage but cooler air is building into the region behind it.

The cooler air will stay with us through Monday before temperatures warm up nicely for the remainder of the week.

Although the first snow of the year fell for quite a few areas of the Pikes Peak region overnight as the main storm moved through…a few snow showers reduced visibility over the mountains this afternoon.

We didn’t get any reports of noticeable accumulation with any of these showers caused by unstable air as cold air moved in aloft. This convection, the same process that produces thunderstorms, came to an end for most mountain areas by 4pm.

Well the first shot of snow affected many areas last night and early this morning.  Our best tool for showing the various conditions across the area is our Neighborhood Weather Network, and we’ve added a couple of new views.  We now have 2 different cameras in both Woodland Park and Cripple Creek, and in both scenarios we have moveable cameras that allow us to see road conditions and the scenery of each area.  Here’s a look at some of the views we can use…

We’ll be adjusting the view from Monument shortly to better see road conditions this winter.  We had a lot of ice on the north side of Colorado Springs this morning.  Initially the warm roadways melted the snow, but the water on the roadways quickly froze as temperatures tumbled and the wind whipped overhead.  Bridges and overpasses as well as on and off ramps were particularly difficult to navigate this morning…

Of course we have many more views, just visit the Neighborhood Weather Network link under the STORMTRACKER 13 tab.  We expect to expand the network further over the next several weeks.  Thanks for visiting us here at KRDO.com, stay warm tonight!!!

It was a great day for the Denver Half and Full Marathon! It was a chilly start, but once the sun came out it felt great! I did the half-marathon and Newschannel 13 Reporter Marshall Zelinger did the full (his first) marathon. We both did very well and couldn’t have asked for better running weather. Today’s highs were generally in the 70s, but for most of the race it was in the 50s and 60s.

Last year’s Denver Marathon was on October 14th, and was miserable! The high in Denver that day was 44 degrees and we had .41 inches of rain. Rain would pour from the sky, then turn to sleet and then back to rain!
Our race could have been a little different if it would have been one day later! We have a cold front moving in and temperatures will be much cooler with cloudy/drizzle skies tomorrow morning.

It’s hard to believe but winter weather will be here before you know it. Governor Bill Ritter has proclaimed this week “Winter Weather Preparedness Week” across Colorado.  The National Weather Service is highlighting a different aspect of winter weather each day this week to help Coloradans stay as safe as possible.  To see the information the NWS has for each day, click here.

You really couldn’t ask for a more beautiful October weekend that what we’ll enjoy here today and tomorrow. Any indoor plans should definitely be moved outside. Speaking of the outdoors, there isn’t as much yellow to be seen from our camera in Cripple Creek. Hopefully you had a chance to head to the mountains to see the fall colors over the past few weeks.

It does look like a decent time to head elsewhere in the state to see the leaves in their autumn color. Both of our cameras in Ft. Collins and Golden are showing the colorful leaves still on the trees.

Ok, now that it has worked out, I’m going to let you in behind the scenes and confess to something. When we launched our Fall Colors Contest, we didn’t yet have a prize secured for the winner. I put the ball in our sales staff’s court, figuring and hoping that they’d come through. Well, the good news was delivered yesterday and the prize we ended up with is really, really nice.

Its a weekend get-a-way for two to the Gold Rush in Cripple Creek…which would be fine and dandy all by itself…except this also includes ALL MEALS! Please check out the slide show and rate your favorites, we’ll consider that as we determine the winner. I’ll announce it during our 10pm newscast on Friday, October 24th. Good luck and thank you to all of you that submitted pictures, you’ve made our little contest a whopping success!