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CBS4 meteorologist Dave Aguilera has lots of helpful information for Coloradans who have an interest in the weather.
If you didn't know better you might think meteorology might just be the study of "meteorites". But, that would not be correct. Meteorology is the study of things in the earth's atmosphere, especially those dealing with weather. So simply put meteorology is the study of weather.
To find out what meteorology means we have to go way back to ancient Greece. Back then the word meteor would be any object that might be in the sky, it could be rain, snow, rainbows, or yes, even outer space rocks falling through our atmosphere.
Over time the word meteorology came to be known as the study of things in our atmosphere and the study of meteorites fell under the study of astronomy, (which is the study of things beyond earth and its atmosphere.).
If you picture the Earth's atmosphere as a big pot of soup, the "Spoon" that stirs up that soup, is the Sun.
The Sun will heat different air masses around the Earth to different temperatures, depending upon the season. Some of these air masses may be cold. Some of these air masses may be warm.
If you live in Colorado you will most likely encounter almost any type of weather phenomena, it could be wild or it could be mild. The most important geographical feature that affects our weather is the mountains.
When a storm system hits the Rocky Mountains it can do any number of things. Blast right over the mountains, through the mountains, around the mountain or just be a lazy storm and linger over the High Country.
Both of these terms describe what you might see outside. The difference is one is long term and one is short term.
Weather is the way our atmosphere is behaving right now, tonight, tomorrow and the next day. That's the short term. Climate is the way our atmosphere behaves over a long period of time, years even decades.
Another way to look at these to words is this way. Climate is what we expect. Weather is what we get.
There are a few things to remember when you are watching the weather on CBS4. When you watch the weather forecast on TV you might hear and see the weather forecaster talk about cold fronts, warm fronts, high pressure, low pressure or many other different things that are going to affect our weather. See a special slideshow that shows how each of these graphics look.
Dave Aguilera explains in this special video clip how a meteorologist like him puts together a forecast.
Have you ever wondered about why different parts of town and different parts of Colorado have the nicknames names they do? CBS4 meteorologist Dave Aguilera took some time to explain it -- for newcomers and natives alike.
Aguilera was inspired to do this after Michael Walters of Arvada posed a great question to cbs4denver.com about the lingo used to describe areas in Colorado.
We are new to the Denver Metro Area. We watch your station as I like it the best. However, I get confused about what is the Foothills, Flat Range, upper this, lower that. Call me stupid but what seperates the foothills from the flat range? Can you tell me what all of the reference definitions are or, where I may be able to find this on the Web?
Get all of Aguilera's answers in the story Aguilera Breaks Down Some Colorado Geology Lingo.
A cloud is a group many small drops of water and/or ice crystals, so tiny that they can float in the air!
All clouds are made up of water. In fact, clouds, snow and rain are all some form of water. Clouds are droplets of water and/or ice crystals, rain are liquid water and snow is a group of many ice crystals.
Water existing as a gas in the air is called water vapor.
Clouds form through a process called "condensation." This happens when warm air rises. As this air expands, it cools. This cooling and expanding process forces the water vapor in the air to become a liquid droplet that will stick to tiny dust particles or ice crystals floating in the air.
It takes billions of these tiny droplets to stick together and become a cloud.
You may have noticed clouds come in endless shapes and sizes, but, they are classified in ten different types. These types may seem pretty complicated, but, when you group them into different levels of the atmosphere, remembering the different types does become easier.
Believe it or not if you know what cloud types to look for you can actually, predict your own local weather if you know what to look for.
Cloud types are put into groups by how they look to a person on the ground. The ten types of clouds are put into four different categories and separated by using Latin words to identify what they look like.
The first category is the High Clouds. High clouds use the prefix Cirro or Cirrus and are made up of mostly ice crystals. These feathery looking clouds normally float above 20 thousand feet in the atmosphere.
High Clouds:
• Cirrus (see image)
• Cirrocumulus (see image)
• Cirrostratus (see image)
The second category is Middle Clouds. Middle clouds use the prefix Alto and can roam between 6,500 feet up to 20,000 feet. These clouds contain mostly water droplets, because they are at a lower level. Some of them however, can contain ice crystals if the temperatures are cold enough.
Middle Clouds:
• Altocumulus (see image)
• Altostratus (see image)
The 3rd category is Low Clouds. Low clouds can have two different prefixes attached to them. They are Cumulus (which are rising puffy, cotton ball looking clouds or Stratus which are layered clouds. These clouds can have bases from the surface to 6,500 feet, but, we can see there tops rise higher than that.
Low Clouds:
• Cumulus (see image)
• Stratocumulus (see image)
• Nimbostratus (see image)
• Stratus (see image)
The 4th category is Clouds of Great Vertical Development. These are true thunderstorm clouds. These clouds are produced through thermal convection or frontal lifting and can grow over 40 thousand feet tall!
These clouds can make heavy rain, snow, hail, lightning and even tornadoes.
Clouds of Great Vertical Development:
• Cumulonimbus (see image)
There is also, a special group of cloud types that you might see while you are looking at the sky here in Colorado. These clouds don't fit into the previous four categories but, by watching these clouds you can also, describe and predict what type of weather is going on.
These other types are Fog, Contrails, Mammatus (see image), and orographic(mountain wave).
Fog is a cloud in contact with the ground. It is made up of billions of tiny water droplets floating in the air. Fog is different from other clouds only because it touches the earths surface.
Contrails are made at high altitudes where very cold temperatures freeze water in just a few seconds before it can drop or evaporate. The word Contrail is short for condensation trail. This happens when water vapor is put into the air from the exhaust fumes of a jet engine.
Mammatus clouds can sometimes look scary. These clouds look like lots of dark sinking pouches. These clouds are formed with thunderstorms and hang from the bottom of a storm looking like they are bulging down from the bottom of a cumulonimbus cloud.
Orographic clouds have many descriptive names here in Colorado. These tend to appear along the Colorado Front Range when we have strong winds in the upper levels of the atmosphere. These form when air is forced up into the atmosphere by the mountains. Sometimes these are called mountain wave clouds. If the clouds are thin, lens-like looking or flying saucer looking, they are called lenticular clouds.
Wind is flowing air produced by uneven heating of the earth and atmosphere around the earth. On the earth since there are areas of land and areas of water, land absorbs heat from the sun at a different rate than that of water. As a result, the air over the two tends to be a different temperature.
Also, due to the Earth's angle and rotation different parts can have direct sunshine hitting them all or most of the time. While, other areas see less sunshine and cool off a lot faster. Warm air weighs less than cold air and tends to rise up into the atmosphere. Cold air sinks and rushes in to fill the space left by rising warm air. The result, air starts to move meaning the wind blows.
