Speaker 1: Our friend and chief meteorologist from Fox thirty one, Dave Frasier.
Speaker 2: Hello, Dave, Hey, good afternoon. How are you.
Speaker 3: I am.
Speaker 1: I'm cranky about the state of affairs in America, but
Speaker 1: I'm happy to talk to you about the weather.
Speaker 4: How about that?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I was listening, so I'm gonna tread lightly.
Speaker 2: I don't want to be the one to cause you
Speaker 2: to curse on the radio.
Speaker 1: No, you could never do that unless you tell me
Speaker 1: that we're about to have four feet of snow tomorrow,
Speaker 1: in which case I can make no promises that I
Speaker 1: would not curse you.
Speaker 2: No, that's not coming anytime soon that I can see.
Speaker 4: No, And can we talk.
Speaker 1: For a second. Let's not talk about the weather here
Speaker 1: so much. Can we talk about what's happening in California
Speaker 1: right now? Because are we going to get the smoke?
Speaker 1: Everything is on fire in southern California right now? Like
Speaker 1: everything is on fire? Are we going to get that
Speaker 1: is not going to impact our air quality? Because I
Speaker 1: have so far been enjoying the summer without it. But man,
Speaker 1: it looks like it's going to be bad.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's possible.
Speaker 2: I think to the north and east of.
Speaker 3: The Front Range with the wind flow aloft and some smoke.
Speaker 2: Could drift in.
Speaker 3: So far, what we've been seeing is it's up high,
Speaker 3: so it's not filtering down row and we've got a
Speaker 3: chance with thunderstorms in the forecast that helps to stir
Speaker 3: the air a little bit. So for right now, that's
Speaker 3: not a huge concern. Plus, tomorrow our windflow be from
Speaker 3: a different direction, be more southerly, and so it won't
Speaker 3: be tapping into what's going on out west. And so
Speaker 3: I think for the next few days we're okay. But
Speaker 3: that is certainly something we're keeping an eye on, especially
Speaker 3: given how large those fires are.
Speaker 1: All right, so what are we looking at here just
Speaker 1: in weatherwise, Yes.
Speaker 3: Got a thunderstorms this afternoon. We've had a chance each
Speaker 3: day this week, and not much is materialized down here.
Speaker 3: We're in that downsloping pattern that we talk about where
Speaker 3: the storms kind of make their way from the mountains
Speaker 3: down over the face of the foothills and that downward
Speaker 3: motion drives them out. So while we've had a few
Speaker 3: sprinkles up and down the front range, I think today
Speaker 3: there's just a slightly better setup that we'll get some
Speaker 3: wedding rains in a few areas, But don't hold your
Speaker 3: breath for rain today chance twenty to thirty percent chance,
Speaker 3: and then after.
Speaker 2: That we go back to a dry conditions.
Speaker 3: I don't really have much going on for rain chances
Speaker 3: in the forecast. The eastern plains east of Denver on
Speaker 3: Sunday might see a stray storm, but otherwise I've got
Speaker 3: Denver's forecast right. The good news is once we get
Speaker 3: past tomorrow's ninety degree day, I don't see any more nineties.
Speaker 3: And the deeper we get into September, it's hard to
Speaker 3: reach ninety because of the shorter days of the low
Speaker 3: sun angle.
Speaker 4: Okay, good, I'm okay with that.
Speaker 1: I'm enough with the ninety I'm ready for our like
Speaker 1: two and a half weeks of fall we get before we.
Speaker 4: Get the first biged no storm. I just I don't know.
Speaker 4: I like this weather. I like it in the eighties.
Speaker 1: That we're coming into the time of year that I
Speaker 1: really really enjoy the most in Colorado. And I know
Speaker 1: that you know some people askew this time of year
Speaker 1: and they're like, oh, it's mud season. It's unpredictable that
Speaker 1: this is my favorite time of the year weatherwise.
Speaker 4: Here. It just seems like.
Speaker 1: We've got some crazy blips here or there, but for
Speaker 1: the most part, it's pretty stable.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it is, and that's the great that's the word
Speaker 3: to describe it, the stable part of it. I mean,
Speaker 3: you've got your beautiful upper seventies eighties during the day,
Speaker 3: she get to enjoy the warmth. The days are shorter,
Speaker 3: so that warmth or in some people's opinion, that he
Speaker 3: doesn't stick around long. And then you've got your crisp
Speaker 3: overnight loads in the upper forties and sidties. I just
Speaker 3: was out running a few errands and that was something
Speaker 3: that somebody had pulled me aside and said, I love
Speaker 3: this time of the year because of those low overnight loads. Yeah,
Speaker 3: the windows open and it's cool, and so that's the
Speaker 3: benefit of September and October in my opinion, two of
Speaker 3: the best months of the year. However, they are snow months,
Speaker 3: so you can see wild swings. We've seen that, we
Speaker 3: know that happens. We've had blizzards, we've had shockingly cold
Speaker 3: outbreaks that kind of killed vegetation. So they're not per
Speaker 3: seine when it comes to the weather. But overall, that
Speaker 3: stable kind of what you expect is fantastic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Dave, I got a question that we've talked about
Speaker 1: in the past, but I think it's a very common question,
Speaker 1: so let's answer it again. And it says, what does
Speaker 1: it actually mean when they say a certain percentage of rain,
Speaker 1: like a fort chance of rain?
Speaker 4: Does that mean how much chance.
Speaker 1: You have over all or for a particular area in
Speaker 1: your city?
Speaker 4: So how do you come up with that number?
Speaker 3: It's a calculation that's based on a geographical area, and
Speaker 3: I we.
Speaker 2: We struggle with this all the time.
Speaker 3: You know, either way you look at it, it is
Speaker 3: a chance, right. The percentage should give you some idea
Speaker 3: of whether that chance is a low risk that you'll
Speaker 3: run into rain or a widespread chance that you know,
Speaker 3: we're going to see it.
Speaker 2: Just about everywhere.
Speaker 3: But it's not calculated to whether or not it's going
Speaker 3: to rain. It's just a matter of in a geographical area.
Speaker 3: You take that geographical area, divide it out, you look
Speaker 3: at the risk factors as it comes to rain, and
Speaker 3: there's a mathematical formula that calculates out that it's a
Speaker 3: twenty percent risk or it's a thirty percent risk because
Speaker 3: in that geographical square, let's just call it, there's.
Speaker 2: Probably going to be rained.
Speaker 3: But the chance is so remote and it's so scattered
Speaker 3: and convective that you know.
Speaker 2: The risk is low for most people.
Speaker 3: But as I jokingly said before, if I tell you
Speaker 3: there's a thirty percent chance of brain and you're the
Speaker 3: one coming out of the grocery store caring groceries and
Speaker 3: it rained on you, your chance just went to one hundred.
Speaker 4: Okay, let me ask this question. I think this is
Speaker 4: a good question.
Speaker 1: How many hours in a day constitutes a sunny day?
Speaker 1: Because even on a sunny day, you can have a
Speaker 1: straight cloud here and there, it's not partly cloudy. So
Speaker 1: how many hours do you have to have or how
Speaker 1: clear does it have to be?
Speaker 3: It's going to be based on I think of the
Speaker 3: adjective as the sky.
Speaker 2: So if you say it's.
Speaker 3: Going to be partly sunny, clouds are going to win out.
Speaker 3: If you say it's going to be partly cloudy, the
Speaker 3: sun's going to be a little more so it's only
Speaker 3: part of the.
Speaker 2: Sky that will be covered out.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 3: The Chamber of Commerce joke here is that I shouldn't
Speaker 3: call it a joke because they market on it, is
Speaker 3: that we get three hundred days of sunshine. It's actually
Speaker 3: closer to about two sixty to two seventy. So most
Speaker 3: days it's about how much of the cloud cover is
Speaker 3: going to block the sky, and then you weigh that
Speaker 3: out versus, you know, the duration to figure out is
Speaker 3: it a partly cloudy, is it a partly sunny, is
Speaker 3: it mostly cloudy? Is it mostly sunny? And so there
Speaker 3: are there's no hard line.
Speaker 2: To the hours, but if you.
Speaker 3: Look at what we look at and you look at
Speaker 3: the computer models and stuff, it's pretty easy to say,
Speaker 3: like today is going to be a partly cloudy day.
Speaker 3: So we kind of break it up a little better
Speaker 3: language morning sunshine, increasing clouds, turning cloud in the afternoon
Speaker 3: with showers and thunderstorms. We're trying to be a little
Speaker 3: more specific than just the adjective describing the sky.
Speaker 1: So here's the question, do you know the record for
Speaker 1: the most days in a row of not getting below
Speaker 1: fifty degrees?
Speaker 4: So as the low, I guess yeah.
Speaker 2: Or blow off the top of my head.
Speaker 3: Now I would have to go in and use our
Speaker 3: analyzer for historic data to see what that is. So
Speaker 3: not going below fifty degrees so that would include overnight lows.
Speaker 2: I have to go and pull that and see what
Speaker 2: that is.
Speaker 3: Well, now I want to know my head. No, yes,
Speaker 3: well I'll pull it and now i'll text it to
Speaker 3: a rod somebody just cour of days.
Speaker 2: Not going below fistrees.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll google, I'll look into that.
Speaker 2: I'll pull up the historical see if I can find that.
Speaker 1: Okay, And this person just said Indian summer, and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm gonna admit something. I have a hazy idea of
Speaker 1: what Indian summer is, but I'm not sure what exactly
Speaker 1: it is because growing up in Florida, you don't really
Speaker 1: have seasons per se, so you don't worry about Indian
Speaker 1: summer because it's just summer and then like four weeks
Speaker 1: of cold and then summer again. Right, So what exactly
Speaker 1: is Indian summer and are we having one?
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 3: Now. Traditionally, it's a warm period that follows our first freeze.
Speaker 3: Oh okay, yeah, yeah, So you get your first freezing
Speaker 3: temperatures of the year, and now the freeze, the first
Speaker 3: freeze is behind us, and then all of.
Speaker 2: A sudden you enter back into a warm period.
Speaker 3: And that's generally the definition that is used across the country.
Speaker 3: So it's that that dip into oh it's winter. We're
Speaker 3: freezing now, and then all of a sudden, that's fake.
Speaker 2: It's warm again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the we have fake winter and then back
Speaker 1: to end of summer kind of thing. Okay, good now,
Speaker 1: I just learned something very much. Just came back from Kansas.
Speaker 1: It was cooler there for the last four days than
Speaker 1: here in Kansas.
Speaker 4: What's that about?
Speaker 3: So they were just the weather pattern has been driving
Speaker 3: storms to the east of us, and so they've had
Speaker 3: a little more benefit of a northerly flow than we have.
Speaker 3: We've been in more of a southwesterly flow. We've been
Speaker 3: tapping still into desert, dry hot air, and that's what's
Speaker 3: been pushing us. I mean, we're eleven days into the month,
Speaker 3: and five of the days so far in September then
Speaker 3: at ninety degrees or higher. None of those temperatures on
Speaker 3: those hot days reached record levels. But the average right
Speaker 3: now for Denver's eighty two. So you can think, you know,
Speaker 3: we're running five days above I think, right, five days
Speaker 3: at ninety or higher, four days at eighty or higher,
Speaker 3: and one day most people won't remember it, that refreshing
Speaker 3: day we had almost two weeks ago on Thursday, we
Speaker 3: were in the seventies.
Speaker 4: I still remember it fondly, Dave.
Speaker 1: I remember it fondly that Thursday, a couple of weeks ago,
Speaker 1: when it was just delightful. I'm looking forward to more
Speaker 1: of those days. Dave Fraser, thank you again for your time.
Speaker 1: I look forward to your text about how many days
Speaker 1: in a row without going below fifty degrees we've had.
Speaker 2: I'll get it to you shortly, all right.
Speaker 4: Thanks Dave. See, this is why we do this.