Colorado ARES
Weather Information

Latest update: 12/30/2007

Colorado Weather

Colorado's location and topography combine to create some of the most unique weather patterns in the country: severe thunderstorms, lightning, hail, tornadoes, heavy rain and flooding in the summer, and heavy snow and blizzards in the winter. Because of these conditions, weather watchers and spotters stay busy year-round.

This weather page is not intended to provide you with specific detailed information about Colorado weather. Instead, this page has a few links which can help you to find out more of what you want to know about the weather in Colorado, and to steer you to the people responsible for coordinating the Skywarn efforts in this section.

Current Weather & Road Conditions

There are plenty of web sites that have current weather for this section. Some of these are more commercial in nature and intended for the general public, such as the TV stations and newspapers. Others, like the sites run by NOAA have current weather statements for different areas in this section. Others are intended for researchers or scientists who are trying to understand weather phenomena. Below are a few of these links. If you know of other interesting weather links you'd like to see on this page, please drop me a line and I'll add it.

Skywarn

What is Skywarn? Skywarn is a National Weather Service (NWS) program in which trained volunteers (not just amateur radio operators) provide visual weather observations to the NWS. This program has been invaluable in providing information to the NWS in time for the NWS to issue the appropriate warnings to the general public. Even with all the modern weather sensors and computers at their disposal, the NWS can only determine the potential for severe weather. The NWS relies on weather spotters to provide feedback on what's actually happening in an area of severe weather. Amateur radio operators in many parts of the country have hosted training and pooled together their system of operators and communications capabilities to help get the necessary information to the NWS.

Here in Colorado, there are a number of Skywarn-trained amateur radio groups who have formalized working relationships with the NWS offices in their areas. Again, since this page isn't intended to provide you with all there is to know about Skywarn, several links are provided below which contain much more detailed information about Skywarn in Colorado and about Skywarn in general.

Pikes Peak Skywarn/Severe Weather Information

 The Pikes Peak region (District 14, El Paso and Teller Counties) has an active Skywarn group. The information available is still growing, and this is the location to find it. Click here for more info on the Pikes Peak ARES.

Colorado Skywarn Contacts

Upcoming Training

 As information becomes known about Skywarn training, the date, location, and points of contact will be posted here. If you know of a training class scheduled and it's not posted here, please pass the information to me and I'll post it. Please contact the person shown below for more detailed information.

Emergency Managers Weather Information Network (EMWIN)

What better description of EMWIN than from the source. The following description of EMWIN is from a public notice issued by the NWS on March 3, 1997.

What is EMWIN? Briefly, the EMWIN is a National Weather Service program to broadcast watches and warnings and other NWS information via either satellite. The information can be received by anyone with the right equipment. The right equipment consists of a VHF or UHF receiver, demodulation hardware, and software to receive the local VHF of UHF broadcasts. In areas where the local VHF or UHF broadcasts aren't available, then you will have to receive the signals directly from the satellite.

There are a number of web sites which describe in greater detail the EMWIN system.

And, there are a number of people in Colorado that are working on setting up local VHF or UHF broadcasts. Contact these people to find out what they're doing in their area.

National Weather Service Offices