Speaker 1: Fox thirty one's chief meteorologist, Dave Frasier. Dave, it's winter,
Speaker 1: A winter's here.
Speaker 2: Yes, it is. Welcome to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1: Let's kick the Dorian on winter. So what are we
Speaker 1: looking at right now and how much of our weather
Speaker 1: is polar vortex or just cold.
Speaker 2: Just cold, just called As a matter of fact, you
Speaker 2: probably saw the reports there the big storm earlier in
Speaker 2: the week that just left us last weekend, that was
Speaker 2: our Saturday storm and then rolled literally straight down I
Speaker 2: seventy all the way to the east coast and just
Speaker 2: retavoc all the way through the Midwest and into the
Speaker 2: Ohio River Valley. They've got the you know, the polar
Speaker 2: vortex and the poldest of it. We were on the
Speaker 2: western fringe, but our pattern definitely switched. We knew that
Speaker 2: a little more than a week ago that we get
Speaker 2: into a little bit of a colder pattern that's certainly
Speaker 2: going to trend through about next Tuesday before we start
Speaker 2: to warm back into the forties. So we'll just kind
Speaker 2: of stay in the thirties. And we got two chances
Speaker 2: for snow one tomorrow that one could accumulate the one
Speaker 2: to two inches during the day and then we've got
Speaker 2: a chance of a few flurries or light snowshows on
Speaker 2: Saturday that one doesn't look to do much, so certainly
Speaker 2: a more active pattern. But the good news we're ahead
Speaker 2: for snow for where we are in the month of
Speaker 2: January and for the here yay, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: You know, as they say, we need the moisture, we
Speaker 1: need the moisture. Speaking of needing the moisture, boy, what's
Speaker 1: happening in California right now is really scary. How much
Speaker 1: I mean, is there any relief coming for them that
Speaker 1: you can see? Over those one hundred mile per hour
Speaker 1: winds that they're facing. They're just driving these fires.
Speaker 2: Later this afternoon and later tonight, the wind should start
Speaker 2: to relax. So we were actually tracking that last night
Speaker 2: our sister station KTLA in Los Angeles. We were taking
Speaker 2: their feed. It's an unfortunate situation. The sant and the
Speaker 2: winds were howling future cast wind speeds were going to
Speaker 2: keep the speeds at the seventy plus mile per hour
Speaker 2: all night last night and should start to relax a
Speaker 2: little bit today. Now the wind's not going to go calm,
Speaker 2: but those stronger gush should start to relax through the
Speaker 2: day to day. But we all know, unfortunately here in Colorado,
Speaker 2: what that can mean. The Marshall Fire obviously the most
Speaker 2: recent one. Once you start to burn with that kind
Speaker 2: of a wind in neighborhoods with you know, natural brushes
Speaker 2: and grasses and trees, it becomes you can't defend it,
Speaker 2: winding roads up, kurvy terrain, EA kills and it's just impossible.
Speaker 2: And you feel for the homeowners and the people who
Speaker 2: had to flee and literally running from their cars, out
Speaker 2: of their cars and running because the traffic was so
Speaker 2: bad they felt like they just needed to keep going.
Speaker 2: It's just a horrible situation. It's literally hell on earth,
Speaker 2: and I feel for them.
Speaker 1: I shudder to think what this is going to do
Speaker 1: because these are this is going to be so catastrophic financially,
Speaker 1: This is going to be devastating financially, and it is
Speaker 1: it is probably going to be almost impossible for these
Speaker 1: people to rebuild and expect to get homeowners insurance.
Speaker 2: Well, that's a that's a conversation we were actually having
Speaker 2: last night because I think you know, you've seen that
Speaker 2: in parts of Florida when when hurricanes, you know, hit
Speaker 2: certain areas over and over again, the insurance companies just
Speaker 2: pull out. They're like, Nope, we're not insuring in that
Speaker 2: area again because the loss is just is too much.
Speaker 2: And I agree with you. If you if your home
Speaker 2: is burned, first of all, and you don't have insurance,
Speaker 2: what do you do if you do have insurance? How
Speaker 2: quickly can you get the funds? Do you want to
Speaker 2: rebuild in this area? And you try and sell the property,
Speaker 2: the land, the charred land, who's come buy it?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I mean the views are going to be magnificent
Speaker 1: again at some point.
Speaker 2: But it's not like.
Speaker 1: They get a lot of rain to repopulate that area
Speaker 1: with greenery. This is just it's devastating what's happening right now.
Speaker 1: I didn't mean to go down that road.
Speaker 2: But so are they?
Speaker 1: Is there any like a further weather relief that they
Speaker 1: can expect? I mean, what is their precipitation situation?
Speaker 2: You know, I haven't looked beyond that. What we what
Speaker 2: would love to be able to do is talk about
Speaker 2: you know, the old the Pineapple Express, or an atmosphere
Speaker 2: river or something that would point the fire hose towards
Speaker 2: the west coast and help them out. I don't see
Speaker 2: anything like that that. The pattern right now is more
Speaker 2: Pacific northwest and across Colorado and the Rockies and on
Speaker 2: to the east than it is from the southwest and
Speaker 2: in their direction. So hopefully they can get some relief,
Speaker 2: you know, sometime soon. But yeah, I think the overall pattern,
Speaker 2: you know, this is that dry part of the year. Unfortunately,
Speaker 2: when those winds pick up out there, all it takes
Speaker 2: is a small spark, and it always seems to happen,
Speaker 2: unfortunately when the winds are roaring.
Speaker 1: Dave Fraser, I didn't even look to see if we
Speaker 1: had weather questions. Hang on, let me open up the
Speaker 1: e Commons burials tack line five sixty six. N I
Speaker 1: know this question for you, Dave. When you say the
Speaker 1: Santa Ana winds last night on your weather broadcast, did
Speaker 1: you say they come down from the east side of
Speaker 1: the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they blow. They blow from the mountains to the
Speaker 2: west towards the Pacific Ocean. So what happens is high pressure.
Speaker 2: The wind around high pressure goes clockwise, and so high
Speaker 2: pressure builds on the east side of the sand of
Speaker 2: the Sierra Mountain range and the wind flows around that
Speaker 2: down the face of the Sierras, goes through some of
Speaker 2: the lower elevations and the desert areas, it compresses, it heat,
Speaker 2: it picks up the dry air. Then it continues to
Speaker 2: roll over the higher terrain in the cliffs and the
Speaker 2: ledges towards the west coast and down into those communities,
Speaker 2: and it blasts out through the canyons, and so the
Speaker 2: canyon's funnel and strengthen the wind. We see that here
Speaker 2: all the time. We talked on your show many times
Speaker 2: about downsloping wind and how it's a drying wind. So
Speaker 2: as you move the air here in Colorado from the
Speaker 2: mountains in an easterly direction down towards Denver, that downward
Speaker 2: motion is like turning on a hair dryer. It compresses,
Speaker 2: it heats, and it drives the air. And so we
Speaker 2: end up with that. And we see at times when
Speaker 2: the wind is funneling through like Chake Cole Creek Canyon.
Speaker 2: You can get a blast of wind out along Highway
Speaker 2: ninety three between Boulder and Golden that is just, you know,
Speaker 2: just unbelievable, flipping trucks over. So they're dealing with it.
Speaker 2: It's just going the other way. It's going west. Towards
Speaker 2: the ocean. As a matter of fact, those fires were
Speaker 2: driven right up to the Pacific Coast Highway and the
Speaker 2: next stop was the ocean.
Speaker 1: Okay, I got one more question for you, Dave. This
Speaker 1: one about something I know about and hate. Out of
Speaker 1: all of our weather things that you can endure on
Speaker 1: a regular basis, ice storms are the worst, and I
Speaker 1: experience them in Kentucky. And I have a listener who
Speaker 1: just moved to Kentucky who said back this question. Mandy
Speaker 1: asked Dave how a snowstorm can turn to an ice
Speaker 1: storm when the temperature on the ground doesn't change. First,
Speaker 1: Kentucky ice storm wasn't really fun and ice storms are horrible.
Speaker 2: So that part of the country I'm familiar because I
Speaker 2: lived in Cincinnati ice belt area from say Saint Louis
Speaker 2: across you know, across the Midwest Saint Louis over towards
Speaker 2: you know, say, Cincinnati and parts of Kentucky. And what
Speaker 2: happens is you have a shallow layer of cold air
Speaker 2: at the ground. The temperature doesn't need to change. It's
Speaker 2: just cold enough that as the moisture comes through, it's
Speaker 2: not freezing overhead, so it's not coming as snow. It's
Speaker 2: coming as rain. It gets into that cold, shallow layer
Speaker 2: close to the ground and it freezes on contact. So
Speaker 2: you know, it's just one of those situations where everything
Speaker 2: in the lowest part of the of the atmosphere at
Speaker 2: ground level is cold enough that any moisture that hits
Speaker 2: it freezes instantly, and so you don't you're not going
Speaker 2: to get a lot of temperature. Now if it was,
Speaker 2: if it was colder, then you would be dealing with
Speaker 2: all snow as the snowflakes fall to the ground, but
Speaker 2: you're not. You're dealing with warmer air aloft hitting colder
Speaker 2: air at the surface, and it just turns into a
Speaker 2: sheet of ice and accumulating ice, and it is nasty and.
Speaker 1: It hangs on your power lines and then they snap
Speaker 1: and it is just the most miserable experience to just
Speaker 1: get through it. It's so awful.
Speaker 2: Anyway, Yeah, go ahead, Dad, We'll take six inches of
Speaker 2: snow over a tenth of an inch of ice.
Speaker 1: Amen to that, my friend, Amen to that. Dave Fraser,
Speaker 1: Good to talk to you as always. We will chat
Speaker 1: again next week. Happy twenty twenty five, my friend.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let's hope it's a good one. It will be
Speaker 2: well willing to be.
Speaker 1: We'll do the assumed clothes, all right, Dave uh, there
Speaker 1: you go.