Summit County Citizens Voice

A NOAA satellite image shows a moist northwest flow working its way across the northern Rockies.

More frequent updates based on real-time observation drive push for more accurate and timely information

By Bob Berwyn

SUMMIT COUNTY — The Grand Junction-based National Weather Service office is one of 11 stations around the country participating in an effort to boost forecasts by updating the input of real-time weather data and observations more frequently.

The goal is to produce more frequent short-term updates for the 0- to 36-hour period with more detailed geographic information and more accurate timing of weather events, said Mike Meyers, a forecaster at the Grand Junction NWS station.

“We’ll be looking more at real-time data and mesoscale,” Meyers said. “It’ll be a good test.”

Mesoscale meteorology involves weather systems smaller that the synoptic events like the large high and low pressure systems driven by the jet stream. Essentially, mesoscale  dimensions range from about five kilometers to several hundred kilometers horizontally — essentially, the local weather.

The forecasts are still based on weather models and radar and satellite data, but combining that information with what’s really happening in the immediate area should help generate forecasts that more useful to people affected by the weather, with the “Point and Click” forecasts on NWS testbed office websites containing frequently revised data and detail.

Scheduled updates will be issued about every 3 hours, while event-driven updates will be issued more frequently — as the weather dictates.

Here’s how the NWS described it in a statement on its website:

Filed under: climate and weather, Colorado, Snow and weather, Summit County news, Summit County snow and weather Tagged: | Colorado weather, Grand Junction Colorado, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Weather Service, short-term forecasts