Applied Weather Associates

09/30/2024

🌟 Welcome Moniki Melo to AWA! 🌟

We’re excited to welcome Moniki Melo to the AWA team. Moniki brings a wealth of knowledge with her background in Meteorology and Geology, specializing in precipitation frequency, climate change assessments, and rainfall analysis. Her expertise in running WRF models and conducting advanced statistical analysis makes her a fantastic addition to our growing team.

Moniki's multilingual abilities and initiative in tackling key tasks during her onboarding process have already made a great impression, and we’re eager to see her contributions take shape as we continue to expand our capabilities.
Welcome aboard, Moniki! 🌎💧

08/29/2024

Another spectacular late summer sunset at Applied Weather Associates' headquarters on top of the Palmer Divide in Colorado, no filters needed, Mother Nature is showing us how it's done. There is always something interesting going on in the world of weather and climate, you just need to take the time to look and enjoy.

08/14/2024

Our paper describing the extreme rainfall which caused extensive flooding and damage in southern Louisiana and southeastern Texas during the middle of May 2021 was just published in the journal of Physical Geography. This paper represents a collaboration of several authors from AWA, LSU, Southern Illinois University, and SUNY-Albany. The work provides a detailed analysis of the rainfall accumulation, the rarity of the rainfall, and other characteristics related to flooding and resulting damages. Comparisons against a similar extreme event during the August 2016 event are provided. Thanks to Vincent Brown, PhD for leading this effort.

This paper analyzes the heavy rainfall on 16–20 May 2021 across southeastern Texas and southern Louisiana. In Louisiana, five fatalities were attributed to the event and > $1 billion in losses. The...

03/15/2024

Just over 30" of snow since Wednesday evening at AWA headquarters on top of the Palmer Divide in Colorado. Even for our location where we average over 120" of snow per season, this much snow in a short amount of time is a lot. This is a good start to our spring snow season, our snowiest time of the year.

02/26/2024

Timelapse of the Air Force Academy fire from AWA headquarters on top of the Palmer Divide from ~1:12pm to ~5:20pm Feb 25, 2024. Interesting fire growth and amazing to watch the effects of the wind.

AFA Fire-02-25-2024

02/15/2024

Fingers of fog and low clouds were hugging the low spots along the I-25 corridor and local drainages around the west side of Colorado Springs this morning while the higher elevations of the Palmer Divide, Rampart Range, and Pikes Peak remained above the clouds. The view is from Applied Weather Associates headquarters on top of the Palmer Divide. These situations are also interesting because they provide a visual representation of how cold, dense air fills in the lower elevations first, interacts with the moisture in the atmosphere and temperature contrasts to create condensation and clouds. But because the air is colder/more moist than the surround higher elevations it forms and "flows" like water in those preferred pathways and in the specific areas where the combination of moisture and temperature create clouds, while surround areas are clear. Just another example of how awesome weather and Mother Nature are.

12/22/2023

Last sunset of fall as the winter solstice starts at 827pm local time this evening in Colorado and Mother Nature decided to provide us with another awesome sunset over Pikes Peak from AWA headquarters on top of the Palmer Divide. Now we start to get more sunshine until next June 20. If you like longer days of sunshine, something for you to look forward too. If you like snow and cold, then not so exciting.

12/14/2023

After low clouds, fog, and flurries all day, the fog lifted just in time for sunset on top of the Palmer Divide in Colorado. This produced spectacular scenery with the setting sun behind Pikes Peak, heavy rime ice on the trees, the remaining fog peeling back through the lower elevations, and plenty of fresh snow. The views provided by Mother Nature never get old and always produce new surprises, you just have to take the time to look.

11/03/2023

It's that time of year again on top of the Palmer Divide in Colorado at Applied Weather Associates headquarters when spectacular sunsets are common over Pike Peak and today was a great example. Strong winds aloft become more common in the fall and winter as the jet stream approaches the region and this helps set the stage for high clouds moving through. Awesome layers of light and color, with clouds affected by topography were the result at sunset.

11/01/2023

Weather and climate wisdom for the day: "Water" years general start October 1 and go through September 30. This water year in Colorado demonstrated how much variation there can be over seemingly short distances. In this case, the Front Range of Colorado, specifically from areas around metro Denver south and east through Colorado Springs, were very wet and cold. In fact, it was the wettest water year on record (since 1896) in this region, while it was drier than normal just across the mountains in the San Luis Valley. Not surprisingly, it was also cooler than normal in this region. Of course, Colorado was an anomaly, as much of the central and eastern US was warm and much of the Great Plains and Ohio Valley were dry for the water year overall (see the two images from the Colorado Climate Center write up). Just another example that weather and climate are almost never "normal". At any given time, some areas are dry, some are wet, some are cold, and some are warm, "normal" is just the mean of these extremes. Just give Mother Nature enough time and all of the conditions will occur, so do't get too excited if you are stuck in a pattern you don't like, it's only a matter of time before it changes.

10/02/2023

Fall colors were in full glory high in the Colorado Rockies last weekend around Copper Mountain, Rainbow Lake trail, and Lake Dillon. The Colorado blue skies made the scene even more memorable. After gusty winds today and some light snowfall this evening in the Colorado high country, the peak fall color has passed, but that just means the snow season isn't too far away. Mother Nature never disappoints and there is always something exciting happening somewhere.

09/13/2023

While we have been watching various hurricanes and other extreme rainfall events over the past few weeks here in the United States, a major storm has brought torrential rainfall and significant loss of life in regions surrounding the Mediterranean from Bulgaria through Greece and into Northern Africa. This storm first produced record rainfall in Greece with more than 30 inches in places in less than 24 hours! This of course produced devastating floods in much of southern Greece. Then the storm continued to moved south across the Mediterranean into northern Africa where it brought additional rainfall to Libya. The storm pattern is similar to the type of cut-off lows that form in the United States that are produced by a trough at 500mb and a surface low that are "cut-off" from the main atmospheric steering current and affect the same regions for an extended period of time. In the case of this storm (called Daniel by the European weather agencies), the rainfall was enhanced by moisture from the Mediterranean (sometimes termed a "Medicane") and interactions with topography in Greece and Libya. Unfortunately, the end result of this storm was 2 dam failures in Libya which may have resulted in as many as 10,000 lives lost! Below is a link to a satellite reconstruction of the storm as it affected Greece and the Mediterranean and a YouTube video of the devastation in Libya including the two dam failures. Applied Weather Associates has been monitoring this storm since it began and will analyze it with our Storm Precipitation Analysis System (SPAS) for use in our PMP studies in the region.

https://gpm.nasa.gov/applications/weather/news/imerg-captures-flooding-rainfall-greece

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x3eE3F57pCw

On Sept. 4, 2023, a low-pressure system developed over southeastern Europe that would lead to devastating floods over Greece and other parts of the region. The system was given the name “Daniel” by local meteorological agencies. Daniel was dynamically driven by strong cyclonic flow in the upper-...