All right, my friends, is time to check in with Fox thirty one chief meteorologist Dave Frasier. Dave, today is lovely, but we have a little more like winter coming next week, don't we.
Yeah. Yeah, let's not get the cart before the horse. Let's enjoy what we've got. It's not really looking like winter. It's going to be another one of these Pacific storms late Monday, kind of in early Tuesday, maybe back again after a break in the afternoon. But the temperatures right now, Mandy, Monday's still going to be in the sixties, like sixty one. Tuesday might be forty five, So you're dealing with a
it's kind of a spring Pacific storm again. When they come in from the Pacific, they just don't bring the cold air with them. It doesn't mean you can't get rain and snow. It doesn't mean you can't get some grassy accumulation or maybe a little coating on the roads. We'll keep an eye out for that and any impact
that it might have. But the temperature Tuesday morning, if there was a rain snow mix, is like at thirty so you're kind of there, but probably not turning things too bad or too select but we'll keep an eye out on it.
So let me ask you. We've had a bunch of snowfall in the mountains. I was talking to my chiropractor, doctor Cook, and he said he went skiing last weekend and said it was the best snow of my life. And he's not exactly like a ten year old, you know what I mean. So, I mean, how is our snowpack doing? And obviously they're going to get more. They're going to get snow out of this system.
I'm guessing yes, yeah, they'll get several inches out of it. You know, President's Day weekend we had really good snow, and then that following weekend, the weekend after President's Day, she was doubting that they were anticipating just as much traffic as the holiday weekend because we had all that fresh snow. So, yeah, the snow has been good. The resorts are sharing tons of pictures and video of all the fresh powder up there, a lot of runs open.
I will tell you that the northern mountains are all doing great. In excess, about one hundred percent of the snowpack for this time of the year. Southwest mountains are struggling. They're below seventy percent so think of the San Juans, the up ore Rio Grand down in the San Luis Valley.
But that's what we expected coming in. This is a if you looked at a map online of what a typical pattern for lat Ninia winter would look like, the current Colorado snowpack matches that perfectly, where the northern mountains benefit and the southern mountains struggle. So we are in great shape the front range, the South Platte River Valley. For our water supply one hundred and seven percent of normal right now. And that's good because we load all
the way through April. First, We've still got March as our snowiest month coming up. All right, I've.
Got a question from David, and he asked this question a couple of weeks ago, but it was the end of the segment. I didn't get it in time. He's asking, have you begun to look at how cold this February is in the historical register of februaries? Because it certainly felt really cold this February. Are we exceptionally colder? Are we just hallucinating?
So it's funny, thank you David for that question. You kind of tied me up because I'm sitting here looking at it every night for about the last ten days. Right around nine forty five, when I do an update in our nine o'clock news, I'm Fox thirty one. I've been sharing the calendar for the month. We do that generally. So the month started off with fifties and sixties for six straight days, and then we had that arctic blast at the start of week two that lasted for four days,
and so we had overnight lows below zero. We had highs like on the twelfth of the month, it was only ten er high. Then that second week a week could go from now we were still struggling four straight days with temperatures at twenty eight, twelve, twenty one, twenty six, overnight lows again below zero. So fresh in everybody's mind is that middle part of February. Well, here's the funny thing. That warm start of the month and the stretch of
the temperatures we've had. Now we are only two point nine degrees below normal, and with two more days expected in the sixties. Put your profile from February will actually end up probably write at normal. It will not get into the top twenty list as coldest. It will not get into the top twenty list as Walmis, it will not get into the top twenty list for most snow, and it will not get in the top twenty list
for lease snow. So it's going to come out average and it's going to be a little shy on the snow by about two and a half inches.
What was our coldest What was our coldest temperature ever in February in the metro? I mean, do you have that information or have you done that?
The coldest temperature where I know the coldest temperature ever in Colorado was twenty nine below its way back in eighteen seventy nine. As far as the coldest temperature in the month of February, I can probably tell you here pretty quickly. Give me a second, ask me another question while I pull it up, and I'll get that answer for you.
My question is about when you guys work in television meteorology, it seems like every TV station is always looking for the knee this piece of tech like to improve the way the system looks. Do you guys get to weigh in on that as members of the meteorology staff or do you just is are those decisions made above you?
No? No, we weigh in on it because we're the end user, right. You don't want somebody going out and buying a piece of equipment. That's happened in my career where management or a corporation will go out and buy what they think is a great piece of equipment for the meteorologists to use because it's the latest cutting edge, and then come to find out it doesn't fit the needs of how mets come about making their graphics and putting their forecast together. That happened a lot of people
remember this. So you remember the original Jurassic Park and it was cool. There was this cool fly by simulation of a hurricane that was heading to the island. Well, that piece of equipment called Earthwatch was then marketed for television. Mets and news directors loved it, went crazy and they were starting to buy them across the country because you could do this three dimensional fly through stuff right. Well, it had no it had no graphics in it. You
couldn't even put text in it. Oh wow, seven day together without text. So we are we are deeply involved in those decision makings for making sure that we're getting the best piece of equipment that fits the needs. And you know how much of it do we need do we need three boxes? Four boxes? Five boxes? We have we have a lot of boxes because we have the two stations and we're pretty much round the clock.
So okay, so now call this te return February.
Still looking, I'm still looking, keep going, keep going.
I don't have anything. You put me on this spot. Okay, let's let's regroup and we'll answer that next week because we'll be done with February and we'll we'll just put that on the docket for next Wednesday's Weather Wednesday and go from there because I'm out, I'm out of questions.
Yeah, and I know you got a short show too, so David, my apologies. I will get that question answered. Uh, and I'll text it. I'll text it day Rod, and if you have time before the end of the show, you can shout the number out.
You actually answered David's questions, which is is this month going to be in the record books when in reality, it's just going to be a very average February when all is said and done.
Right, So I didn't let David down. It was the question about the coldest. I will find it for you and get it off to a Rod because I know you're short on time.
You let me down, Dave Fraser. That's you let me, your humble host. You let me down, all right, Dave, Oh go ahead.
I'm gonna give you just a piece of advice. I heard you at the beginning of the show that you're coming down with everybody had you know what's coming. Buckle up. I got it about a month ago, and that darn thing lasted about a month stopping.
You are not helping. You're not helping at all. I don't have time for this. I don't have time to be sick. I'm just gonna will myself back into good health. I can do it. I can do it.
That's willing go get.
It all right? All right, Dave Fraser. We'll talk to you next week.
My friend, take care many all right.
That is Dave Fraser.