Box thirty one's chief meteorologist, Day Fraser, Ainy Day Fraser, what about this.
Dug and gloomy skies today? What's happening?
Weeah that nice refreshing change, thanks for cool front last night. So instead of baking at ninety five like we did yesterday, we'll only pop out in the in the mid eighties today. So that's that's the benefit of the dark and gloomy skies out there. But the price that comes with it is a chance for showers and thunderstorms, some of which will have lightning and wind and hail typical threats, and
so we'll watch for that this afternoon. But the humidity level is higher today, I'm sure everybody by Colorado standards just about that, and that can lead to heavy rain but hopefully beneficial range. So there's a there's a trade out right, Maybe keep the hail on the small side. We don't get any damage, but we can ring out some rain this with this higher humidity, and that's what I'm hoping for.
Well, let me give out the text number if people have weather questions. Now's the time, five sixty six nine. Oh is who you text? Yesterday? I was driving home and I was all excited because I was driving through really like health rain, right, good rain, and then drove into my neighborhood and not a drop and I was like, dang it, now I've got to water on my plants.
So how scattered are these showers?
When are we I mean, when are we going to see like a solid line where I know I'm going to get rain?
When am I going to get that?
You know, when we're dealing with storms of convective nature, you know, it just depends where the first ones go up. And then we always talk about outflow boundaries. When the thunderstorms are kind of dying, they can throw a gush of wind across the ground and that can be a focal point for additional development. Those things, even the highest resolution models don't do a good job picking up on, so you kind of have to watch the radar real time. I will tell you if you're going to get your
rain up and down the front range. As I'm looking at our high resolution models, it's going to start. The clouds are going to delay the start because they're delayed the heating. So obviously heating is a component to get the storms going. I'm thinking we're going to be somewhere in the two to three o'clock start. I think the best window goes till about five o'clock, and by five to six they're starting to push past the airport and
go onto the eastern planes. So if you're going to get the rain, you're going to have to see it by five to six. If you haven't seen it by five to six, your only hope would be that an outflow boundary comes back in your direction, But chances for that in this type of environment are going to be on the very low side. So that's your window coverage
is about sixty percent, Mandy. So I know a lot of people think that that means though there's a pretty good chance you know that you'll get rain, it's decent. It means a lot more of us have a better chance of seeing it, but it's not one hundred percent, all.
Right, So we got a couple of questions, and funny, I have three different questions from three different textures, and they are all about the use of the word land spout. Let me read them all to you in one one little fellow swoop here, Hi, Mandy, can.
You ask Dave what a land spout is? Mandy?
For Dave, difference between a land spout and a dust devil. Mandy Weather Wednesday question. Please ask Dave when and why did they start calling tornadoes land spalves. So let's clear the air on landsfalts, shall we yep?
So let me start with the lower end, the dust devil. The dust devil is exactly that. As the ground heats, the air rises, and if it heats a finite area, you can get the air to rise and kind of swirl a little bit. Generally, a dust devil doesn't do much, and it doesn't connect to the upper atmosphere, and it only lasts as long as it's over that heated source and then it dies away. So if a dust level comes up and it moves over an area that's cooler,
it's just going to die out. The next one would be the land spaluve and land spout tornadoes, and that's the frase you'll hear us use are defined as tornadoes. It's just that they form in a different way. So a tornado is generally associated with a large thunderstorm or a cumulomimous cloud. The whole storm is rotating and the tornado drops from the center of the storm down to
the ground. And that rotating column of air can be violent, and as we know, we have categories for them or a zero one two through the EF scale that we talked about all the time. And the stronger the wind, the more damage you're going to have. The storms can be very large. We don't tend to see them. Most of Colorado deals with E F zero EF one. They
don't last all that long. A land spout is in essence, a dust devil that starts on the ground because of heating or swirling wind, and as a thunderstorm is growing, just starting to develop, it acts like a suction or a vacuum, and it stucks that rotation up and connects it with the cloud and gives it a little more spin up and so it grows from a different direction. Now, the lamp spout that did the damage in Franktown yesterday,
most lamp spouts do not do damage. They last, they don't last very long, and their speeds are very very low. But I mean, you don't want to be in one. I mean feeling even stung by bees. The one that hit frank Down came up and hit the corner of a building. It looks like it took a roof off of a commercial property that one only lasted ninety seconds, But ninety seconds enough. Here's the problem when it comes to land spouts. The radar the start at the ground.
The radar cannot point directly to the ground radar right, so the radar is pointing over the horizon. So the farther out you get from the radar, the beam is getting higher and higher and higher off the ground because of the curvature of the earth. So because the radar is not pointed at the ground, it's pointed more in the middle aspect of the storms where we can see the rotation. You don't get the notification of anything happening until it grows tall enough that it might be able
to be seen by radar. So, in essence, we can be blind in those respects when it comes to the technology. Once it connects, it can grow tall, and generally the base of the thunderstorm is way up high, and sometimes you'll be able to see it growing up and it does visually look like a tornado, it's just a different formation.
So but does it ever become a tornado or is it all a land spout and it's always a tornado based on how they start.
Now it's because of the way it started. It's not going to the storm that's generating. It is not the typical formation of a classic rotating funderstorm. It's basically the thunderstorm is growing and the air going into the thunderstorm is kind of drawing up that land spout, if you will. The cloud itself is not generating the rotation in the spent.
Okay, so it sounds to me as a Floridian. A land spout is the same as a water spout on the water.
So yeah, it can be. But sometimes water stoups can be tornadoes that form over water, and they define them as water stops because they're over water.
Okay, I've actually been in the Gulf.
Yeah, I've been in the Gulf of Mexico on a small boat when I watched a land spout form and it was one of the coolest things I've ever seen in my life and also super terrifying. So I didn't enjoy the as we were running away from it as fast as we could, but it was really fascinating to see it happen in real time. It was really super cool. Here's one for you, Dave. Ask Dave if a dust devil is related to the Tasmanian Devil.
Or the vice versa. Yes, the Tasmanian Devil is related to the dust level. Yeah, because dust devils. We all know the cartoon, right, Yes, swirled the dust devil in the cartoon, you know, bugs Bunny and the Tasmanian Devil, a swirling pile of dust creating chaos. And so yeah, I think it's interchangeable. Which came first, the chicken of the egg. I can't tell you.
This is a serious question.
They need.
The smoke here on the western slope is awful. Please ask Dave if there's any relief coming dust in the next week. We've got some big fire fires burning on the western slope the border of Utah. Is there any rain coming to give any relief from that?
You know? Unfortunately, the long range outlook for the next six to ten days does keep the western slope dry. They struggle at this time of the year. We're benefiting from a cold front that came in from the east last night. They did not make it up and over the mountains to the west. So while there will be spotty storms over the west, for instance, the San Juans tomorrow, the San Juan Mountains in the southwest. We'll get some small storms out there. I don't see a huge relief coming.
I don't see a widespread rain event enough to you know, put the fires out. The hope with the smoke might be that if we can get a little wind to stir it and get it up in the way. They do have air quality alerts right now for the west and southwest part of the state because of the smoke. It's unfortunate. But that part of the state We've talked about it for months and months and months, is the part of the state. The eastern half of the state
has no drought. The western half of the state is still druggling its drought and the trade off for rain chances may come with lightning, and that of course can spark additional fires. I mean, we've seen the news. You know what's happening down in the Grand Canyon area in Arizona. You know, unfortunate to see that the lodge was lost and stuff. So the west is struggling a little bit. I just don't see a big enough storm right now
to help. But any wind can help disperse the smoke, and that would be my hope, is that maybe we get the smoke up in a way so that they don't have to deal with the poor air quality and the smell. Uh.
Dave Frasier, Joy as always, my friend. We'll talk to you next week.
Yep. Have a great rest of your week.
Huh you do? That is Dave Frasier from Fox thirty one.