Snow covers Loveland Ski Area this morning as they prepare to open for the first time of the season. (Loveland Ski Area)
Down here along the Front Range we continue waiting for our first snow but in the high country Mother Nature brought white gold in recent days. The 2010 ski season will kick off this morning as Loveland Ski Area opens and Arapahoe Basin will follow suit tomorrow.
The annual race to be the first ski area in Colorado to open is running a bit behind schedule as warmer than normal weather postponed the openings. The contest usually comes down to Loveland and A-Basin and for the second year in a row Loveland will be the winner.
Check out the announcement from Loveland in the video below
Loveland recorded five inches of snow Friday night and more throughout the day Saturday to add to their manmade base. Overnight Saturday and into Sunday morning snow has continued to fall assuring conditions will be more than adequate for the scheduled 9:00am opening.
On the other side of the Continental Divide in Summit County, A-Basin will open at 9:00am on Monday. The resort will also be opening with its new Black Mountain Express high speed chairlift.
A series of winter weather systems are forecast to move across the Colorado mountains in the coming days helping to add to the snow totals and pushing other areas closer to their openings. Winter Storm Warnings have been posted for mountain areas west of the Divide and Winter Storm Watches for the north central mountains on the west side.
The Fourmile Canyon Fire is seen crowning on the tops of trees soon after it started. Check out more amazing photos from the fires below. (U.S. Forest Service)
It seems like it had been a while since Colorado suffered a major wildfire and summer had indeed passed quietly in those terms – until Labor Day.
Spurred on by strong winds and fed by tinder dry fuels the Fourmile Canyon Fire in Boulder County soon exploded and served as a reminder that the fire danger was still with us. Photos taken during that blaze and the Reservoir Road Fire tell a story of the battle of man against nature.
Wildfires can quickly grow from a small event to one that covers thousands of acres destroying property and sometimes claiming lives in the process. Colorado dodged a bullet with the Fourmile Canyon Fire and the Reservoir Road Fire as no lives were lost and there were very few injuries.
Many residents in the burn areas however suffered other losses — that of their home and virtually every belonging they owned. The events torched over 6,500 acres combined and the Fourmile Canyon Fire became the most destructive in state history in terms of homes destroyed, as 166 houses were lost.
Photos taken from the outset of the first fire were impressive. Some were taken from right next to the fire as residents worked to save their homes; others were captured from 22,300 miles in space by NOAA satellites showing smoke traveling across three states.
The images in the slideshow to the left represent the best images captured by Examiner.com readers, the U.S. Forest Service and professional photographers. They tell a compelling story of the fight between man and fire and the battle to save lives and property.
A slurry bomber drops retardant on the Fourmile Canyon Fire. (USFS) View more images in the slideshow below.
Much like words have been used to tell the story of the Fourmile Canyon Fire and its destructive power, so too have photos and video. The U.S. Forest Service has released new photos taken by their crews that tell the story in a way that hasn’t been seen yet – from behind the fire lines.
The images taken by the U.S. Forest Service (USFS) are stunning testaments to the bravery of the firefighters on the scene. Photos of chainsaw wielding combatants, slurry bombers dropping their bright red retardant, and fire raging next to roadways tell the story from behind the lines.
You can view the new images by clicking on the slideshow image below.
Below are links to other slideshows we published on Examiner.com over the past week.
The Fourmile Canyon Fire sent smoke over Thornton on Monday. (ThorntonWeather.com)
A fast moving wildfire burning northwest of Boulder sent smoke over Thornton on monday and more is expected today. The Fourmile Canyon Fire started late Monday morning and has burned 3,500 acres thus far.
Tinder dry fuels, low humidity, warm temperatures and gusty winds fueled the Fourmile Canyon Fire yesterday as it grew quickly. Firefighters took up defensive positions trying to save what homes they could but many were reduced to cinder.
More than 100 firefighters are on scene with 35 engines from 30 local agencies. Boulder County Fire is acting as the primary agency for the fire.
High winds prevented air tankers with retardant from operating for most of the day but the wind eased in the late afternoon and evening allowing some operations. 18 flights by three tankers were carried out before the sun set and they were able to drop 40,000 gallons of retardant on the fast moving fire.
Four additional tankers arrived Monday and will begin operations today, weather permitting.
Colorado storm chaser Roger Hill was shown on the Drudge report and that led to appearances on most major TV networks.
Roger Hill is considered quite famous among storm chasers as he has a proven, uncanny ability to place himself right where severe weather will strike. A recent headline on the Drudge Report featuring Hill has now shined the national media spotlight on him and his profession as co-owner of a storm chasing tour company.
Hill is no stranger to the media as his amazing videos and photos have been featured on the Weather Channel, Discovery Channel, National Geographic and all major news networks. For nearly a decade Hill and his company Silver Lining Tours have been showing thrill seekers what it is like to experience severe weather at closer range than what may be possible otherwise. Interest in “storm chasing tours” however has hit a fevered pitch in recent weeks.
Crews from Inside Edition and Nightline then followed by riding along with Hill and Silver Lining Tours as they crisscrossed the Great Plains on the hunt for tornadoes.
The Nightline piece aired this past Friday and gave a good idea of what it is like to be on tour with Hill (watch the video below). From the frenzied pace to the seemingly endless ingestion of fast food and of course the thrill of the tornado chase, reporter Eric Hong experienced it all.
The Big Thompson Flood in 1976 claimed the lives of 143 Coloradoans in what is Colorado's deadliest natural disaster.
July 31, 1976 started like most other summer days in Colorado. It was 1976 and the nation was celebrating its bicentennial and Colorado was celebrating its centennial. What should have been a quiet summer day quickly turned disastrous as the Big Thompson Flood killed more than 100 people in Colorado’s deadliest natural disaster.
In terms of weather, the day started out much like one would expect but by late afternoon storm clouds loomed over the mountains. Mountain thunderstorms are an almost daily occurrence in Colorado but the storm that struck in the early evening that day was unlike any other.
With light winds aloft, the storm stalled over the upper portion of the Big Thompson basin where it sat dumping tremendous amounts of rain – nearly 8 inches in one hour and 12 inches over four hours. The rain came so fast that the water didn’t have time to be absorbed into the ground.
I’m stuck, I’m right in the middle of it, I can’t get out…about a half mile east of Drake on the highway. Get the cars out of the low area down below…
~ Radio transmission by Sergeant Willis Hugh Purdy, Colorado State Patrol. Purdy was never heard from again.
In the mid-sections of the canyon and lower, there was little indication of what was to come. The flash flood that resulted from the rain further up rushed down the canyon creating a wall of water that was 20 feet high in places. The flood scoured the canyon of everything – cars, homes, buildings and people.
The following day the Rocky Mountain News ran with the headline “Scores dead, hundreds hurt in Big Thompson flash flood.” A subheading said, “U.S. 34 west of Loveland is no more.”
When the flood was over, 143 people had lost their lives, more than in any other natural disaster in state history. 418 homes, 52 businesses and 400 cars were destroyed at a cost of over $40 million.
An example of a hole-punch cloud over Alabama. (Alan Sealls, WKRG-TV / NCAR)
Mysterious, almost UFO-looking, clouds have fascinated viewers from the ground for decades. Now, scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder have determined that planes can ‘punch holes’ in clouds and perform the equivalent of cloud seeding.
Andrew Heymsfield, a scientist at NCAR, said that given the right conditions, planes climbing or descending can cause the atmospheric phenomena known as hole-punch, or canal clouds. When they do, they create unusual cloud formations and can cause rain and snow to develop.
Scientists have long speculated about the cause of the unusual ‘holes’ in the clouds and had attributed them to various aviation-related causes, none of which were conclusive.
The scientists at NCAR determined that water droplets at 5 degrees Fahrenheit (-15 degrees Celsius) are the key factor. When a plane flies through these droplets, the air behind it is cooled and the droplets freeze and fall toward the Earth.
A 'cold air funnel' was spotted over Leadville, Colorado on Sunday morning. (NWS Pueblo)
At an altitude nearly two miles high, one would not expect a funnel cloud to appear in the sky over a town like Leadville, Colorado. On Sunday however, Mother Nature treated visitors and residents to a rare ‘cold air funnel’ over the town high in Colorado’s Rocky Mountains.
At approximately 10:30 a.m. on Sunday, the funnel was spotted over Leadville where it continued to rotate for nearly 20 minutes, according to observers. The funnel never touched down, thus never becoming a tornado, but it serves as a reminder that twisters can occur just about anywhere on earth.
Funnel clouds and tornadoes typically need four conditions to form – Shear, Lift, Instability and Moisture (SLIM as famed storm chaser Roger Hill calls it). With a cold air funnel, those conditions also exist, although they aren’t associated with a supercell thunderstorm like is seen on the plains.
According to the National Weather Service’s Pueblo office, a cold low pressure system over northwestern Colorado provided the instability part of the equation. Strong upper level winds over the southwestern part of the state and slower winds over the northwest provided shear. The difference in lower and upper level temperatures and a passing thunderstorm provided the lift and moisture for the funnel.
One Denver-area television station is incorrectly reporting on its website that “Leadville was never in any danger because he says cold-air funnels do not turn into tornadoes.”
This is wholly inaccurate. While cold air funnels do not typically touch down, they can reach the ground and as the National Weather Service states, they “can bring damage in a small area.”
A shelf cloud moves across Nebraska farmland. (Tony Hake / ThorntonWeather.com)
Certainly the highlight of storm chasing is tornadoes and ThorntonWeather.com’s Storm Chase 2010 had plenty of those – five in one day in fact. However, as great of satisfaction can be derived from simpler, less violent storms. The images from a week of chasing on the Great Plains show the fury and the beauty of Mother Nature.
Storm chasing is as much an art as a science – there are no guarantees that tornadoes will appear as forecast. Other types of severe weather and the amazing structure they display can bu just as impressive.
Scud clouds hovering over a coal train in Nebraska, egg sized hail pummeling storm chaser vehicles, the sun setting on the Oklahoma plains and the now infamous Baca County, Colorado tornado ripping through ranchland all were highlights of Storm Chase 2010.
The images in the slideshow below represent some of the most stunning and beautiful images captured during the week.
The Memorial Day tornado in Baca County, Colorado near Campo was the highlight of a week of storm chasing but it wasn’t the only exciting thing to happen. (Tony Hake / ThorntonWeather.com)
We have said before that storm chasing is as much an art as a science and it can very much be feast or famine. Both extremes were seen over the course of a week of storm chasing on the Great Plains by ThorntonWeather.com.
We hope our site visitors were checking out the Storm Chase 2010 Examiner where we were documenting our chase across America’s heartland. With stories, photos and video, the entire incredible week has been described in detail.
The first tornado of that day near Pritchett, Colorado allowed chasers to witness the complete tornado genesis. As massive amounts of air were sucked into a storm cell and the clouds swirled menacingly above, a small funnel cloud soon grew into a powerful tornado.
Two other tornadoes and an incredible hail storm on the virtually barren ranchland followed. The main event was yet to come however.
About eight miles south of Campo, Colorado, a massive supercell seemed poised to generate a tornado. Chasers waited anxiously as the sky grew darker on the plains. A funnel cloud formed and was cheered on as it grew closer to the ground.
Before long the tornado was on the ground moving at a leisurely 10 mph – its slow pace allowing for plenty of time to capture amazing photos and video of the event. The Baca County tornado would draw national media attention and will possibly go down as the most picturesque of all twisters during the 2010 tornado season.
While the Memorial Day tornadoes would be the last seen during the week, they were not the last extraordinary weather event witnessed by the storm chasers.
Storm Chase 2010 intercepted a flying saucer over western Kansas at the end of a very long chase day. (Tony Hake / ThorntonWeather.com)
Central Nebraska proved to be the backdrop for another day of weather beauty. Waiting patiently at a small town gas station, multiple super cells moved across the area and chasers were on the move. From highways to dirt roads, the chasers saw the storms generate amazing shelf clouds and funnel clouds.
In the end, the group of storm chasers covered over 2,500 miles across five states. They witnessed many funnel clouds and amazing storm structures and of course five tornadoes, two of which were at close range. For many it was truly a once in a lifetime experience that allowed them to see Mother Nature’s fury up close and personal.
Complete stories, photos and video from Storm Chase 2010:
Get the rest of this story including more photos and video explaining the phenomena at the Denver Weather Examiner!
