Yesterday NOAA released its spring drought and flood risk predictions and in it are some good and bad news for Colorado.
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.
Second, the bad news. With all that snow comes a risk of flooding. The danger could be especially great if we experience a warmer than normal spring and the mountain runoff occurs too quickly. Most of the state, with the exception of the northeast corner, runs above normal risks of flooding this spring. Locations in the mountains of Colorado have 150 to 200 percent of average water contained in snowpack leading to a higher than normal flood potential. Flooding is the number one weather killer in the country so everyone needs to be aware of the dangers this presents!
For more information, please see NOAA’s report here.
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 
Updated 2/13/08 @ 4:10pm. A Snow and Blowing Snow Advisory has been issued and is in effect from midnight tonight until 5:00pm Thursday. A blowing snow advisory means that winds and blowing and drifting snow will reduce visibilities sufficiently to make travel difficult. Please continue to visit our site for the latest on the approaching storm. If you haven’t, you may wish to 
February 15th -17th Denver will play host to the 10th Annual National Storm Chaser Convention. The event will be held at the Raddison Hotel at I-225 and Parker Road (3200 South Parker Road). Most notably, the keynote speakers will be Dr. Josh Wurman and Sean Casey who appeared in the recently aired Discovery Channel special, Storm Chasers. This is a great opportunity for weather enthusiasts to share storm stories, learn more about severe weather and storm chasing, see new weather gadgetry and hear from some of the experts in weather related fields. 
Klaus Wolter, a meteorologist affiliated with the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration continues to promise a dry winter. In an article today in the Rocky Mountain News he says, “I think we should count our blessings. We got lucky” in regards to the amount of moisture the state has seen thus far.
The 2007 hurricane season officially ended on November 30th and in the Atlantic, a total of 14 named storms were produced, including six hurricanes, two of which became major hurricanes. The good news is that only one hurricane, one tropical storm and three tropical depressions struck the United States so we escaped relatively unscathed. This does however make one wonder about the accuracy of hurricane forecasts. This is the second year in a row that predictions indicated above normal activity when the opposite turned out to be true. 