27 June 2012
All Time Records Tumble in Rockies and Plains. Fires Threaten NCAR.
Posted by Dan Satterfield
The massive heat wave spread from Montana to Louisiana Tuesday with several more all time record highs broken. Hill City, KS and McCook, Nebraska hit 46 degrees C or 115 degrees F. Both, the warmest temperatures ever recorded in those cities. Winds gusted to 40 mph at Denver International and all along the front range of Colorado in the afternoon. Lightning from thunderstorms sparked wildfires and they grew rapidly. The many dead trees from the Pine Beetle infestation likely had an effect in the fires spread, but how much??
The fires near Boulder threatened the National Centers For Atmospheric Research and the Mesa Lab had to be evacuated. Late word tonight is that over 32,000 people have been put under evacuation warnings in the Boulder Colorado Springs area. Winds are weakening tonight, and the fire near Boulder seems to be slowing down. Colorado Springs does not seem as lucky.
The heat will be moving eastward and late model guidance tonight is indicating that more all time record highs are on the way. Below are some images I grabbed this evening of the fires, and from the NWP models. Click to enlarge them, they pretty much tell the story…
Now the bad news…the NWP forecast for Friday at 5 PM EDT:
In situations like this the model guidance will usually UNDERESTIMATE the temperatures.
Why do you have “Fire Threatens NCAR” in the headline but then a picture from Colorado Springs beneath it? And geez, the 32,000 evac is for Colorado Springs, not Boulder. Did a real person write this post?
The 32,000 evacuated are from Colorado Springs not Boulder. I fixed that. The other complaint is ridiculous.
I’m not sure what you think is ridiculous. Two serious accuracy issues in one post is a big deal, and I’d thank anyone who took the trouble to point out such glaring errors in any post I created or any other communication that had my name on it. I wondered if a real person wrote the post because it didn’t seem like a lot of thought went into putting it together, and we here in Colorado are taking these fires (and their locations) very seriously.
Lighten up M. Giles. It was an minor mistake. “Did a real person write this”, that’s being mean. Lots of people take fire seriously, not just some in Colorado.
I’m sorry; it was not my intention to be rude or mean. I was alarmed because I thought that if people who know Boulder (like family) read this, they would be in a panic (no slight or disrespect intended to those in Colorado Springs or anywhere else). I was also concerned about this being a robo-post because a couple of us had been trying to get it fixed since it first went up on the Web (via Twitter to Dan and @theAGU), to no avail and with no response (until the next day). I would just expect a higher bar of accuracy and attention to detail from an AGU blog, so, quite honestly, I was shocked.