Weather Imagery

This was another one of those infamous Colorado blizzards that snuck up with about a 1-day warning. The first forecasts from a few days earlier didn’t mention anything about a significant snow storm, only that we may get a couple inches of snow and some moderate winds. Then on Tuesday, the day before the storm hit, forecasters started hinting that this could be a pretty powerful storm. I figured it wouldn’t be that bad because a fairly potent yet uneventful cold front had already pushed through a few days earlier. Anyhow, here’s the hour-by-hour experience of the December 20th, 2006 blizzard from the town of Falcon just outside the city limits of Colorado Springs:

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On April 7th 2005, we were starting to get the first indications that there might be a significant weather event in store for Colorado Springs, Colorado. Most of the time, these weather events are hit or miss in which they may or may not have that much of an impact on our location. We don’t actually live in Colorado Springs. We’re about 8 miles east in the town of Falcon and due to the geography, we fall in the “rain shadow” of Black Forest and the Palmer divide. This means any storms that come from the north (as most winter storms do) produce very little snow fall by the time it reaches us. However, the wind can be ferocious.

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What I saw this day was nothing I could of ever expected. The scene was eerie, cold, and vastly different than the 80+ degree weather I left from just 30 minutes earlier. As I headed east toward Ellicot, Colorado from Schriever Air Force Base, it didn’t look like I was driving into any ordinary storm. In fact, it looked more like a blizzard and not a super cell. Something you’d expect to see in December or January. Not in August. As I drove on, I was greeted by a powerful rush of foggy damp air. Apparently, I had just missed the wrath of the storm, but I was about to get caught up in its path of destruction.

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