Mike Madson – ColoradoWeatherman

As of Monday, January 16th, the state’s community colleges are back in session, and from an instructor’s perspective, here are a few tips for success…

1)  Plan your semester before you actually show up. I’ve met a number of students this semester who came to my first lecture, expecting to be signed in to an already full class. From my side of the lecture hall, it’s a good problem to have (as opposed to “nobody took your class”), but most instructors, including me, won’t sign you in and diminish the chances for learning for the existing students.
2)  Suggestion for the future…meet with an advisor. An advisor in your discipline, (Astronomy, Geography, Art, Legal, etc.), can help you plan the courses to take for the entire time you’ll spend at community college. That means you only take courses that move you towards your degree and your next goal.  If you feel you’re not getting what you need from your assigned advisor, get another one. There are lots of us.
3)  Look at the class syllabus online before your first day of class.  It may list supplies/texts/lab manuals you’ll need on the first day. You want to hit the ground running.
4)  If you don’t understand what the instructor just said, ask questions.  This is not the 1950s, and you’re not “showing your ignorance” if you ask an instructor to repeat or explain what he/she just said in a way that you understand. Their job is to make sure you get it. (I often tell my classes “make me EARN this huge teaching salary and ask questions until what I’m trying to teach you makes sense”).

That leads directly to…

5)  You are NEVER too old to return to college, or just take a class or two.  If you’re thinking “I’ll be the only one there who isn’t between 18 and 21″, or “everybody else in the class will think I’m stupid, because it’s been decades since I’ve been in school”. FORGET IT. All those years you’ve spent accumulating maturity can pay off now. You know how to learn. You’ll ask questions until you understand (see above), and the things you learn will keep your mind active and open your life to new ways of seeing the world and dealing with its challenges. Some of my favorite students are 50+ and while some began studying astronomy, geography or meteorology with me with just a little “can I do this?”, all have been shining stars. Don’t be shy about asking your instructor if you can record the lecture, so you can play it back later. (OK, I’ll admit that I was a little intimidated by one of my “mature” students who already had a PhD in what I was teaching…and was just taking the class for fun……no pressure there! It worked out wonderfully, though, and the things he was able to contribute made the class even better).
6)  Finally, whatever your class schedule has turned out to be, prepare, prepare, prepare! Read the material for the upcoming lecture ahead of time so you’re reading to add to discussions and ask questions about things you don’t understand. Have your material for labs ready to go. If your class requires a calculator, BRING A CALCULATOR, and make the most of your opportunity to learn.

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The yearly weather statistics for 2011 are in, (Thank you National Weather Service), and it was an interesting year, weatherwise, in both Colorado Springs and Pueblo.  Here are the highlights.

Colorado Springs:
The warmest high of the year was 97 degrees on 6/29. The lowest was -12 on 2/2.  Total precipitation for the year was 16.24″, as compared with the average of 17.40″, so the city came up a little short.  There were 24.8″ of snow (as compared with the average of 51.4″). There were 48 thunderstorm days, 1 day with hail, 11 with snow and 25 where fog had visibility down to 1/4 mile or less.

Pueblo:

The warmest day of the year was 102 on 7/16.  The lowest was -21 on 1/1. Total precipitation for the year was 9.23″, as compared with the average value of 12.39″. (Again, a bit below average for the year). Snowfall was more impressive. 38.6″ of snow fell in 2011. The average value is 31.8″, so the city picked up 6.8″ more than “normal”.  There were 20 thunderstorm days, only 1 with hail and 11 days when fog held visibility to 1/4 mile or less.

For more information, here’s the “official” report from the National Weather Service.  http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cmsstory.php?wfo=pub&storyid=77236&source=0

Filed under: Ask Mike; Mike Madson, Colorado Weather, Coloradoweatherman, Weather Statistics | Tagged: 2011 Weather Colorado Springs, 2011 Weather Pueblo | Comments Off

I ran across an OUTSTANDING compilation of the most extreme national weather events of 2011 at http://www.noaa.gov/extreme2011/index.html and thought it was worth sharing.

Events reach from the Groundhog Day blizzard (with images and weather maps) to the tornado outbreaks that started on April 4-5 and continued through the 28th of the month.  There were wildfires in Arizona, New Mexico and Texas from Spring through Fall and flooding on the Mississippi river in the Spring and Summer. Hurricane Irene visited August 20-29.

There’s lots more here too, including statistics (where I live), video, photo’s and weather maps.

Enjoy (and THANKS NOAA!)

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(They like snow, right?) I just looked at the latest snowfall and precipitation figures for the year and the snow year (which runs from July 1 to June 30…I don’t know why, it’s a “government” thing), and both Colorado Springs and Pueblo are ahead of last year on snowfall (with another storm on the way as I write this).

Colorado Springs:
Snowfall so far: 16.3″
Last Year:  1.2″ (WOW! Bad year)
Average: 14.6″

Precipitation since Jan 1, 2011: 16.24″
Last Year: 9.31″
Average: 17.31″

The bottom line for Colorado Springs is that the city is behind on both precipitation and snowfall, but not nearly as far behind as last year.

Pueblo:
Snowfall (Since 1 July): 21.4″
Last Year: 1.5″
Average: 13.2″ (So as of Monday’s storm…with another one on the way…Pueblo is slightly above “average” snowfall to this point)

Precipitation (Since 1 Jan, 2011): 9.23″
Last Year: 11.24″
Average: 12.30″

So Pueblo is ahead on snowfall, but behind on total precipitation. That means the thunderstorm season didn’t produce its’ average amount of rain.

It looks like 2012 is going to be an interesting year, as La Nina continues.

Filed under: Ask Mike; Mike Madson, Colorado Weather, Coloradoweatherman, Weather Statistics | Tagged: Colorado Springs Climate, Colorado Springs Precipitation 2011, Colorado Springs Snowfall, Pueblo Climate, Pueblo Precipitation 2011, Pueblo Snowfall | 2 Comments »

The Cassini spacecraft, which has been orbiting Saturn since 2004, recorded some “up close and personal” detailed images of Saturn’s moon Dione on Monday, 12/12.  The fly by (76, 000 miles from the moon) was actually for the benefit of Cassini’s on-board systems, but the images were impressive.

Dione is a rocky/icy body that orbits about as far from Saturn as our moon does from Earth. It’s 698 miles in diameter and has LOTS of craters larger than 100 km wide.

Dione was discovered in 1684 by astronomer Giovanni Cassini.

You can see the latest images at http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/cassini/main/index.html

Filed under: Ask Mike; Mike Madson, Astronomy | Tagged: Cassini images of Dione, Latest images of Dione, Saturn's moon Dione | 2 Comments »

This year’s grand finale to the major meteor showers is about to occur. The Geminids will be in the sky (best after midnight) on the mornings of the 14th and 15th.

Weatherwise, early viewing on Tuesday morning isn’t a great bet, as a storm is moving in, but if it stays on schedule, skies should be clearing by Tuesday night/Wednesday morning.

This meteor shower is called “The Geminids” because the flashes of light will appear to come from the constellation Gemini. You’ll find it in the sky near the moon. That’s both good news and bad news. The good news is that you’ll know where to look. The bad news is that as bright as the moon will be, it will wash out all but the brightest meteors….but there’s still hope.

The Geminids can produce up to 50 meteors per hour. If you get any great pictures, please share them.

Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: Geminid Meteor Shower 2011, Geminid meteor shower in Colorado 2011 | 2 Comments »

There’s lots of information about Saturday morning’s total lunar eclipse available. Here’s the local information you need to get your look at it. There’s good news and bad news.
Good News:
1)  The sky should be clear. No problem there.
2)  The moon WILL be visibile from the News 5 viewing area.

Bad News:
1)  It won’t be visible for long. The moon sets at 7:09 AM Saturday morning.
2)  You’ll only get to see the total eclipse for 3 minutes (but better than nothing, right?)

The time table:
5:45 AM – The eclipse gets underway.
7:06 AM – Total Eclipse begins.
7:09 AM – The moon sets to the west

Happy viewing, and if you get any images, I’d appreciate seeing them at KOAA.com, or on facebook.

Filed under: Ask Mike; Mike Madson, Astronomy, Colorado Weather, Coloradoweatherman | Tagged: Lunar Eclipse December 2011 | 1 Comment »

We’ve just been through a night when the wind chill was in the 20s and 30s below zero, and I heard lots of people saying things like “Wow, 20 below. That will kill my car battery” and “That’ll freeze the pipes before morning”.  I have good news for you, wind chill only affects living tissue, not batteries or pipes.

Wind chill, essentially, is all about the rate of heat loss from your body, with a combination of cold and wind.

A little history to start with. Wind chill goes back to 1945, when a pair of Arctic explorers performed experiments to see how exposed skin responded to a combination of wind and cold, as opposed to just cold. Over time, we had the wind chill index, and it made us feel even colder.

In 2000, the US and Canada revised the index, and improved it in a number of ways.
1)  The new index calculates wind speed at 5 feet above the ground (about the average height of a human face).  Earlier it was calculated at 33 feet (the standard height of an anemometer)
2)  The new index incorporates modern heat transfer theory (that’s a big deal)
3)  The new index assumes no impact from the sun (such as on a clear night)

Wind chill affect you, because moisture evaporating from your skin cools your body. (Evaporation is a cooling process). The wind can only cool inanimate objects like car batteries, radiators and pipes to the air temperature, not below, but it CAN cool them to that point faster than they’d get there without the wind.

Next time the wind and cold combine for another set of impressive wind chill values, take precautions for people and  pets, but anything that isn’t alive will be affected only by the air temperature.

Filed under: Ask Mike; Mike Madson, Colorado Weather, Coloradoweatherman, Weather Explanations | Tagged: Wind chill | 2 Comments »

With another cold, windy storm racing towards Colorado, it seems like the appropriate time to remind you that the direction the wind blows from will determine how much snow you get.

It’s based on the fact that if you force a snowstorm to move UPhill, it generally produces more snow.  If it’s moving DOWNhill, snowfall decreases dramatically.

As far as the incoming storm is concerned, after the initial burst, winds will be northerly to northwesterly. Areas where that will force the air UPhill will be the Palmer Divide (Monument, Palmer Lake, Black Forest, Calhan), Teller County, the Wet Mountains, the southern Foothills (Aguilar, Trinidad), the Sangre de Cristo’s and the San Juan Mountains.

Areas where the storm will be moving DOWNhill include southern Colorado Springs, Fountain and Pueblo, (and even without the snowfall, this one will still be windy and VERY cold).

In future posts, I’ll take a closer look at how different wind directions affect different areas.

Filed under: Ask Mike; Mike Madson, Colorado Weather, Coloradoweatherman, Weather Explanations | Tagged: Colorado snow storms, Snow and wind direction | 1 Comment »

With one round of damaging winds behind us, and the potential for more this weekend, many of you have asked “what drives these strong winds?”.

It requires a combination of weather events all coming together to produce them.
1)  First comes the jet stream, that high altitude/high velocity river of air that steers the storms. It reaches speeds of 150-300 mph, but is usually so far overhead that we don’t feel it……BUT
2)  A cold front or other disturbance moving through the region can pull some of the power of those upper winds down to the surface.  (That’s what happened last weekend, and will happen again this weekend)
3)  It’s all about geography. Anything that constricts the flow (like putting your thumb over the end of a garden hose to increase the water velocity) makes the wind speeds increase.  If you noticed the areas where the strongest winds were last time (and where they’ll be this time), they were below breaks in the mountains that constricted and directed the wind flow.

We don’t see wind speeds over 100 mph often in Colorado, but all it takes is the right circumstances, and it’s “hang onto your hat” (and your roof, and your picnic table…….)

Filed under: Ask Mike; Mike Madson, Colorado Weather, Coloradoweatherman, Weather Explanations | Tagged: Damaging Winds In Colorado, High Winds In Colorado, What produces damaging winds in Colorado? | 3 Comments »