Category: Verification (Page 11 of 48)

These posts take a look back at recent weather events, like snow storms or severe weather outbreaks, and evaluate how the forecast played out. We evaluate how well the models predicted what actually occurred, and offer insight into what can be learned and applied moving forward.

January 2023 Graphical Weather Review: Staying cold, staying snowy

February 2, 2023 / BoulderCAST Team

January 2023 was our third consecutive anomalously cold and wet month in the Front Range with drought significantly improving during this time as a result. The month closed out with a bitter cold Arctic outbreak solidifying this January as the coldest since 2007 — something that will be felt in everyone’s wallet when the heating bill arrives. Here’s a quick and colorful graphical recap of our weather during January and how it relates to climatology.

Storm Recap: Snow totals came in on the low end, cold sticks around with more chances of snow already lining up

January 19, 2023 / BoulderCAST Team

There was a lot of complaining this week about the poor snow forecast, but it actually turned out pretty okay — not amazing, but definitely okay. Let’s take a quick look at the totals from across the area for what was a rather impressive winter storm by January standards. We also peek ahead to the cold and snowy stretch of weather to come.

December 2022 Graphical Weather Review: A fickle month of fire, snow & historic cold!

January 13, 2023 / BoulderCAST Team

December 2022 was a rather fickle month. Things started off somewhat warm and dry, and there was even a sizable wildfire just west of Boulder in the week leading up to Christmas. The weather quickly turned much colder and snowier for the holidays, including the coldest temperature reading in more than 30 years for the city. Here’s a quick and colorful graphical recap of our weather during December and how it relates to climatology.

Front Range Snowfall Totals: January 10-11, 2023

January 12, 2023 / BoulderCAST Team

Front Range Snowfall Totals: January 1-2, 2023

January 3, 2023 / BoulderCAST Team

2023 began with a mixbag of wintry precipitation across the Front Range. While snow totals were generally on the light side, the mix in of freezing fog and freezing drizzle made things interesting. Let’s take a look at snowfall totals across the region.

Storm Recap: The spring-like storm in December that unexpectedly dumped up to foot of wet snow

December 29, 2022 / BoulderCAST Team

Well, there’s no possible way of sugar-coating things here — our snowfall forecast for this one ended up being WAY off. Though hopefully our in-depth discussions beforehand stressed that the exact outcome of this specific snow event was much more uncertain than usual. Heck we even called out this forecast as being “a bit like playing a drunken game of darts”. We’ll first take a look at the regional snowfall totals, discuss what went wrong with the forecast and dive into what made this incredible moisture-infused spring-like storm so difficult to predict in the middle of winter.

Putting last week’s epic Arctic blast into historical context for Boulder

December 27, 2022 / Ben Castellani

Last week’s highly-anomalous Arctic blast delivered the goods in terms of record cold and a decent snowfall across the Front Range. We discuss a few different aspects of this particular Arctic outbreak which make it stand out against Boulder’s 122 year historical record.

Front Range Snowfall Totals: December 21-22, 2022

December 22, 2022 / Ben Castellani

The highly-anticipated Arctic blast delivered the goods over the last 18 hours — taking us from near 50 degrees into the negative teens rapidly with a blanket of snow also falling across the entire area. Let’s take a look at the regional snowfall totals.