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Crested Butte, Western Colorado and Western US Weather


Good Links:
Crested Butte Avalanche Center | Crested Butte South | Gothic Weather | Top of Crested Butte Ski Area | Gunnison Airport
Schofield Pass SNOTEL | Grand Junction Skew T | Radar Loop | Weather Discussion | Web Cams |


Weather Story

This is the "Weather Story" from the National weather service in Grand Junction. http://weather.gov/gjt

GOES West Infrared

This is the GOES West weather satellite infrared image from the NOAA Geostationary Satellite Server http://www.goes.noaa.gov/

Water Vapor

Here is the water vapor image from the NOAA Weather Website in Grand Junction http://weather.gov/gjt

Jet and satellite

Here is the national visible image with a jetstream analysis from the California Regional Web Server http://virga.sfsu.edu/

Check the date on this image, sometimes it is not updated regularly, other times the jet analysis is missing.

GOES West Visible Full Disk

This is the GOES West full disk visible image of the western hemisphere, which is mostly the Pacific Ocean. Provided by the NOAA Geostationary Satellite Server http://www.goes.noaa.gov/

UV Index

UltraViolet index from the USEPA website http://epa.gov/sunwise/uvindex.html.
  • 0-2 No danger except from not enough sun, take vitamin D
  • 3-5 Little harm from unprotected exposure to sun unless you're at higher elevations like ski areas. Wear sunblock if you're over snow or water.
  • 6-7 High - About 1/2 hour to sunburn. Wear hat sunglasses and sunscreen of at least SPF 15
  • 8-10 Very High - About 15 minutes to skin damage. Wear hat etc as above and avoid sun from 10am to 4pm
  • 11+ Extreme - Less than 10 min to skin damage. Panic! Not really, just be really careful! Follow above precautions and wear long sleeves and pants too.


SOHO

This is a current xray image of our sun's corona at 304 Å taken by the Extreme ultraviolet Imaging Telescope (EIT) onboard the Solar & Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). From NASA's SOHO website http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/


If there are large or lots of white spots (sunspots), go to http://spaceweather.com/ for more information about the sun.

A CCD Bakeout is when NASA heats up the charge-coupled detector to evaporate water and other compounds to improve the vision of the telescope. The EIT is usually back on line in a week, sometimes longer. More details.
Xray graph of sun

This is a graph of two xray wavelengths of our Sun measured by instruments on the satellite GOES 10.

Watch for solar flares which show as spikes towards the middle or top of the graph. Note the graph flatlines when the satellite is eclipsed.

M Class flares may cause radio blackouts and other problems but X class flares can disrupt satellites and cause electrical grid problems across the Earth. Set your alarm clock and look for auroras if this graph is spiking!

NASA is sharing SOHO data on the website http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/.

Brown, Wendy S. 2008 Weather for Gunnison County, Colorado
www.gunnisoninsects.org