With half of the world’s population now living in cities, many urban dwellers have never experienced the wonderment of pristinely dark skies and maybe never will. This loss, caused by light pollution, is a concern on many fronts: safety, energy conservation and effects on wildlife, as well as our ability to view the stars. Some examples of the impact of light at night include disorientation of sea turtle hatchlings due to beachfront lights, behavioral changes in salamanders, and disturbances in the behavior of nocturnal animals.

Matt’s Tip: GLOBE at Night is an annual two-week campaign that helps to address the light pollution issue locally as well as globally. The campaign begins next week, running from March 3-16, 2010. You are invited along with everyone all over the world to record the brightness of your night sky by matching its appearance toward the constellation Orion with star maps found at www.globeatnight.org/observe_magnitude.html. You then submit your measurements on-line at www.globeatnight.org/report.html with your date, time and location. A few weeks later, organizers release a map of light-pollution levels worldwide. Over the last four two-week GLOBE at Night campaigns, volunteers from over 100 nations have contributed 35,000 measurements!
 
Learn more about light pollution, the Orion constellation and find tips for participating in GLOBE at Night: www.globeatnight.org.

It seems like with many of our storms this winter, Pueblo has missed out on the more significant snowfall totals. However, snow began to fall just after our 5:00 newscast on our Pueblo cameras and was still going strong around 7:45. Some areas around town had already received 3 inches before 8:00.

My boy is old enough to learn to ski. As far away as that seemed a couple of years ago its here. He’s left toddlerdom behind and is an active little boy who likes to learn and try new things. Growing up in Arizona, I never hit the slopes until my second year of college, but being a Colorado native, the earlier the better for Nathan! With that in mind I thought it would be a good idea to review the ski school programs that we visit over the next several years. In poking around on the ‘net, I didn’t find much and thought it might be of help to other parents when deciding where to take the kids when its time to start carving! OK, learning to carve.

Saturday February 13th, 2010

I’ll start off by saying that we had planned on a full day lesson, but northwest flow over the state had produced 5 inches of snow on the Continental Divide overnight and it continued Saturday morning. Loveland Pass had been closed for 9 hours as we left Colorado Springs and the hourly closures of the Eisenhower Tunnel to allow trucks hauling hazardous cargo through along with reduced visibility in the still falling snow turned a normal 1:45 drive into 3 hours. Arriving after 10am, it wasn’t possible to get Nathan into the full day lesson, but the folks at the ski school were very accommodating  and did get us in for a half day lesson. These don’t seem to be available all the time (based on demand?), but there was one other child of similar age and skill with him during the afternoon lesson that started at 1pm.

Getting gear was a breeze and can be rented, helmet included, as part of the lesson for only five dollars! The operation is a well oiled machine from the registration and check-in area (reservations are required for 4 and 5 year olds as classes fill up prior to the actual day) that involves only a small amount of paperwork to the adjacent equipment area where Scott and his staff pleasantly work quickly to get each child the right gear and out the door as fast as possible. It seems like the goal of the staff in this area is to ease the mind of parents some, possibly being aware that the drive up to the resort may have been a bit stressful (at least that’s how it worked for me!). I found the gear to be of good quality and Nathan commented as he was trying it on and at the end of the day that it was comfortable and felt good on his feet and head.

I know I’ll learn more about the defined ski-school bunny hill areas as Nathan takes more lessons, but the defined ski-school magic carpet area was big enough for all of the kids in there on this busy Saturday afternoon. As you can see from the picture, there was ample space between kids, both on the carpet and coming down the hill.

I was interested in what measures were put in place to prevent kids from wandering off from ski school or an abductor from taking a child, possibly posing as a parent. The area was, for the most part, confined with a fabric type wall so that there was a definite defined area. There is an open spot toward the top of the hill, but the wall is configured in a way so as to not be a visible opening from the inside as there is some overlapping of the higher part and the wall lower on the slope. It almost creates a bit of a “runway” that I doubt the kids can see from inside. While it would be possible for some crazy to get in to this area through this opening, it appears that it would be difficult with all of the instructors around to abduct a kid, but may be an area that could be improved in terms of absolute child safety. At the end of the day, pickup is very smooth with all of the kids funneled into the exit at the base of the hill. Parents are given a numbered ticket that matches the ticket attached to your child. While mine wasn’t checked specifically this day, it seemed pretty obvious that he new I was his dad and with only two kids in the class I feel confident that the instructor recalled me from dropping him off. I imagine in larger classes that the tickets are checked before kids are released to the adult.

Nathan’s teacher “Ketchum” was awesome! He got down to the kids level right away and spent a few minutes getting them excited about the opportunity to learn to ski.

Nathan tells me that he laid down some ground rules and talked some about how to put on and take off the skis. They worked on pizza wedging to slow down and followed Ketchum to attempt to learn to turn. I don’t know what specific terms or techniques Ketchum used to describe how the skis would feel underneath their feet, but as you can see, Nathan was skiing! He left the lesson sad that it was time to go, has been talking about it ever since and can’t wait to ski again. As a parent of a 4.5 year old, that combination makes the day and the school a success in the most important area.

The ski school is located at Loveland Valley with is a 1/4 mile down the mountain from Loveland Basin, where the bulk of the terrain is at the ski area and the most likely place where Mom and Dad want to ski. Loveland does a nice job accommodating this by running a free frequent shuttle (every 5 to 10 minutes) between the two areas and I did not have a problem getting back and forth. I might have enjoyed being able to “spy” on him at the bottom of each run were the ski school in the main area, but I spent most of my day up high anyway. There is a lodge at Loveland Valley so parents wanting to watch their children from the comfort and warmth of a building can do this with ease.

Overall, this was a pleasant first experience. Loveland breaks ski lessons out into 9 levels and offers all age and skill levels from 4 up. Child prices (up to age 14) for a full day lesson are 96 dollars and are in line with or a little less expensive than many of the bigger resorts. You can find out more at www.skiloveland.com.

Nathan’s Overall Rating : 5 out of 5 skis

Daddy’s Overall Rating: 4.5 out of 5 skis

With the Winter Olympics underway, I figured it would be appropriate to show a shot of Vancouver courtesy of our ever-expanding Neighborhood Weather Network. This shot in particular comes from Howe Sound. According to BritishColumbia.com, Howe Sound is North America’s southernmost fjord. It is located northwest of Vancouver and, as you can see from the picture, is surrounded by towering peaks. It’s a favorite for sailing, diving, camping, hiking and other recreational activities. Looks like a nice vaction spot!

A fun weather day! The cold air really never drained away from the higher terrain of the Pikes Peak region. In fact, it was being pushed up against the southern slope of the Palmer Divide all day long and we spent most of the afternoon in the teens with clouds re-developing and even some flurries and light snow showers. The edges of these shallow airmasses after the main system moves through is a situation our computer models frequently struggle with and many times we just have to observe what is happening now, project it mentally 6 hours out, and then re-evaluate. The key to tonights forecast is leaving clouds and areas of fog in as possibilities until we actually see the wind switch around out of the north or northwest. That will indicate drier air pushing off of the mountains and will signal the onset of the airmass draining away. Much like water in a bowl, these cold/shallow airmasses seek the lowest lying areas because they are very dense (”heavy” due to gravity’s influence on it) and will end up exiting eastern Colorado along the Arkansas River.

Until this process happens, we’ll see areas of low clouds and fog for areas that are high enough, such as Monument and Briargate as of mid-evening.

Interesting to say the least. When I worked Friday evening, it appeared that snow would wait to really get going until mid to late afternoon Sunday. It endend up starting about 6 hours earlier and actually ended up affecting how much snow accumulated because it melted all day as it hit the ground. As we went into the evening, when the snow obviously is more likely to stick, the main source of lift (temperature gradient in the middle levels of the atmosphere) had fired south into northern New Mexico and so snowfall rates overnight were pretty light.

During the day Monday, a second cold front arrived and dropped temperatures within the vertical atmosphere to perfect snow making temperatures. As such, the light upslope into Monday evening is lifting the air just enough (sometimes it literally needs just nudged upward) to make big, airy, fluffy dendrite snow crystals. These are the kind that literally be broomed off the walk or blown off the car windshield, but can quickly pile up 2, 3 or 4inches! Some folks have been getting their most significant accumulation with this storm over the last 6 hours! UPDATE: Julie Shrank sent a great picture to me Tuesday morning of the snow that ended up being a 50 to 1 ratio snow (meaning that 1 inch of liquid would equal 50 inches of snow), about as high as you’ll ever see it. The liquid to snow ratio is usually closer to 10 or 15 to 1.

Cookies by Design has now sent the STORMTRACKER 13 team a cool cookie basket for National Weather Person’s Day. Its a little freaky to see your likeness on a cookie first of all, but I wanted to compare (in fun!) my 2009 version to this years representation as I find it quite funny!

 The 2009 version is on the right…2010 on the left. Very different takes on my likeness for sure, but somehow the catch the essence. I think you can tell its me in both…Your thoughts?

On February 2, Punxsutawney Phil – the famous weather-predicting groundhog – will emerge from his burrow at Gobblers Knob in Pennsylvania to make his prediction about our winter weather. Scientists know that groundhogs in Pennsylvania hibernate for about 100 days, from November to February. But what if Phil lived in South Carolina…or Maine? Believe it or not, groundhogs living in different parts of the country hibernate for different periods of time. South Carolina’s groundhogs hibernate for 67 days, while Maine’s groundhogs hibernate for 175 days. Scientists aren’t sure yet whether these differences happen because of environmental factors – like varied weather conditions – or if hibernation patterns are genetically-determined.

Think that’s interesting? Here are a few more fun groundhog facts:
* Groundhogs are one of the few “true hibernators.” True hibernators can reduce their body temperatures to nearly freezing and lower thier heart rates from as many as 350 beats per minute to just four beats per minute while they sleep away the winter.
* Groundhogs – also known as woodchucks – don’t move or “chuck” wood as efficiently as beavers. But…how much wood would a woodchuck chuck if a woodchuck could chuck wood? One wildlife biologist estimated that if the typical groundhog’s burrow was filled with wood instead of dirt, the animal would have “chucked” about 700 pounds!