It's time to talk to my former friend Dave Frasier, who totally didn't call me and let me know that I could have seen the Aurora borealis last night if i'd only looked outside.
What the heck, Dave, you were the only one. I ran down to the weather deck when we started getting pictures in and looked out from downtown Denver. Obviously, the city lights obscured any chance for me to see it. Some folks in Denver were able to see a hint of it. But boy, some of the pictures we got last night. I love it when our viewers connect us
with what's going on. Yeah, snowstorms, they're taking pictures. But the pictures we saw from the western slope to the eastern plains, the clouds cleared just in time, and it was probably I went to Alaska years ago to see it, and I did. I will tell you the pictures that we saw. And of course iPhones today and the technologies right phenomenal. But the pictures were more vibrant. The greens, the rich greens, and the reds and the purple shadings.
They were just unbelievable. But the fun anything is it was not expected and that's what was odd Scient's weather Listen. That's not my forte but Science weather is one of these things that they've been dabbling in in years. And some of the graphics we put on TV showing where the viewing line is, those things haven't really come into play till like twenty twenty, so they're kind of new.
And they use a G scale. It's kind of think of a hurricane scale, you know, zero as low as fives, And what we had last night was a G four. So when I went to work yesterday, I have set on my phone to get alerts. I get weather alerts from the National Weather Service. I get earthquake alerts when they're larger than a six point zero the Richter scale, and I get geomagnetic storm alerts, and so we had gotten one yesterday, and all of us in the weather
suder we're talking about it. But it was scheduled for Wednesday today, this evening. So I'm walking through the newsroom last night and our executive producer.
Chris says, Dave Roa bory Alis tonight.
I said no, no, tomorrow night. He says, I don't think. So I go over to his desk and here come the pictures, and I'm like, so, I think there was either a miscalculation in when it arrived, or it was stronger than they thought, or it came sooner than they thought. But it was certainly vivid.
And it was high on the scale.
It was a G four and that is when the viewing line can drop far south, even into the Southern States. And we had a front row seat last night.
And what exactly causes the Aurora boreality, Dave, It's.
A geomagnetic storm in the atmosphere and it just causes an electrical storm where the colors are kind of streaming around.
Again, it's a little.
Above my knowledge of space, weather and everything, but it's basically, I like to say it this way. The sun burps this big giant ball of flare and it just races through space. And of course the biggest concern is to communications and satellites and stuff like that. It can cause interference and you'll hear stuff about you know, airlines and all that kind of stuff.
So it just kind of messes with our electrical fields right and up high, you.
Know, all those kind of gases and everything floating around.
I have seen it from an airplane flying over the Arctic Circle going from San Francisco to Frankfurt, Germany. But I've never seen it from the ground. And you didn't call me, you big jert. No, I'm just kidding, Dave. When are we gonna get snow?
When?
Is?
Don't get me wrong, this is not a complaint.
You know.
I am enjoying the heck out of this weather. Last weekend we went hiking and it was absolutely magnificent. But when can we expect some kind of change in this weather pattern? And you know I'm asking about when an't we gonna get snow?
Days? Yeah, I I'm always in the camp of don't give up, wait until the season's over, But I'm starting to cross over the line and get into that get at the back of the complaint line on the lack of snow we've been talking about. We've been talking about a pattern change. We still see that we said sometime
after the seventeenth. That's still there. I'll give you for instance, on Monday and over the weekend, the forecast called for us to get out of these warm seventies by Saturday and start to get into the fifth these and then forties next week. Well, in the last couple of days we bumped Saturday back into the sixties, and today I had to bump Sunday back into the sixties. The pattern change is still there, but it's being held up just
a little bit. And that's a little disconcerting to me, because while you do have your overnight lows close to freezing or at about twenty nine or thirty degrees, if you can get a little bit of moisture, you can get it to change over. I'm just not seeing a robust storm with enough moisture that we would be able to lay down what would be considered a measurable snow. So I think there's a chance Sunday late evening that we could get a rain shower. It's just looking too warm.
I think there's a stray shower Monday, don't hold your breath. And then I think Tuesday and Wednesday, as we finally start to slide into the forties to about fifty degrees, if there's enough shower activity, and I think it is rain at this point, maybe we mixed in a couple of snowflakes. I'm just not confident at this point to the next seven to ten days we will see measurable
snow in Denver. So of account of how many snowless days we had yesterday was two hundred and seven hour or two hundred eight I think we continue on that count until we can see something more significant.
I will take that. I have no issue with any of that. I like I said, this fall has been absolutely glorious. Tons of people asking on the text line, are we going to have more Aurora borealis tonight or did we miss it?
No? So here's the thing. I pulled that up because I figured that was going to be a question. I'm not going to say no. I'm not going to say no. Number One, last night, the clouds cleared perfectly. Tonight clouds are going to be a little more stubborn. I think if you're going to have a chance, you have to go away from the base of the foothills and out onto the eastern plains. And I think you've got to go north to be able to see it. The viewing
line last night was south of Colorado, almost down to Albuquerque. Tonight, that viewing line is north of Colorado, kind of right on the border. Okay. So, and the geomagnetic threshold that I talked about that four that we got last night, some of that lingered into this morning as of right now and through the evening that's going to drop to a three and a two and a one, So I
think it's kind of slipped away. So I think being forecast, if you will, for that event happened last night, It's still possible tonight, but at a much much lower intensity. And I think you do have to go farther north if you want to try and chase the lights.
Dave.
How another texter said, does Dave know how long it's been since the northern lights were visible this far south?
I don't, but all I can tell you is, again, it's one of those rare occasions here. I've talked to people. People were emailing in and saying they've lived here fifty years and while they've seen them at times, never saw the brilliant show that they saw last night. So I think that tells the story. And what's amazing to me, Mandy, was it was not anything anybody was expecting. It was not like a lunar eclipse.
Right so right eclips where we knew we'd and months in advance.
And people were expecting it, and we're going outside. But the vast majority of people who somehow looked out their window at the right time and went out and photographed. It is just amazing to me because it wasn't anything. I mean, I would have been in my kitchen at home if I was off with the vinds down and never known had we knocked gotten the pictures at the station. Everything changed right around six to six thirty and the picture started coming in.
I'm literally outside on the weather.
Deck going do you see You know, in today's society with AI and m you got to be.
Careful at pictures and are they.
Rail and tornadoes and all this kind of stuff. So my first gut instinct was to be you know, safe there, No, yeah, it's not going to happen till tomorrow. And then the picture just kept coming and wow.
One of my listeners just sent me one from Lake Mac Lake McConaughey, and it's absolutely it looks fake. It's stunning. So thanks for nothing, Dave Frasier for not calling me and let me know to look out my window. I missed it. Have a great week, my friend. We'll talk to you next week.
All right, you.
Guys do enjoy the weekend to head all right?
Welcome say save that stay Phraser