January 8, 2025 • 8 mins
FOX 31'S DAVE FRASER HAS THE LATEST ON THE POLAR VORTEX And boy did I feel it today. He joins me at 12:30 to talk about our next round of snow now that winter has slammed into us.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fox thirty one's chief meteorologist, Dave Frasier. Dave, it's winter,
A winter's here.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yes, it is. Welcome to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Let's kick the Dorian on winter. So what are we
looking at right now and how much of our weather
is polar vortex or just cold.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Just cold, just called As a matter of fact, you
probably saw the reports there the big storm earlier in
the week that just left us last weekend, that was
our Saturday storm and then rolled literally straight down I
seventy all the way to the east coast and just
retavoc all the way through the Midwest and into the
Ohio River Valley. They've got the you know, the polar
(00:40):
vortex and the poldest of it. We were on the
western fringe, but our pattern definitely switched. We knew that
a little more than a week ago that we get
into a little bit of a colder pattern that's certainly
going to trend through about next Tuesday before we start
to warm back into the forties. So we'll just kind
of stay in the thirties. And we got two chances
for snow one tomorrow that one could accumulate the one
(01:01):
to two inches during the day and then we've got
a chance of a few flurries or light snowshows on
Saturday that one doesn't look to do much, so certainly
a more active pattern. But the good news we're ahead
for snow for where we are in the month of
January and for the here yay, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You know, as they say, we need the moisture, we
need the moisture. Speaking of needing the moisture, boy, what's
happening in California right now is really scary. How much
I mean, is there any relief coming for them that
you can see? Over those one hundred mile per hour
winds that they're facing. They're just driving these fires.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Later this afternoon and later tonight, the wind should start
to relax. So we were actually tracking that last night
our sister station KTLA in Los Angeles. We were taking
their feed. It's an unfortunate situation. The sant and the
winds were howling future cast wind speeds were going to
keep the speeds at the seventy plus mile per hour
(01:59):
all night last night and should start to relax a
little bit today. Now the wind's not going to go calm,
but those stronger gush should start to relax through the
day to day. But we all know, unfortunately here in Colorado,
what that can mean. The Marshall Fire obviously the most
recent one. Once you start to burn with that kind
of a wind in neighborhoods with you know, natural brushes
(02:20):
and grasses and trees, it becomes you can't defend it,
winding roads up, kurvy terrain, EA kills and it's just impossible.
And you feel for the homeowners and the people who
had to flee and literally running from their cars, out
of their cars and running because the traffic was so
bad they felt like they just needed to keep going.
(02:41):
It's just a horrible situation. It's literally hell on earth,
and I feel for them.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I shudder to think what this is going to do
because these are this is going to be so catastrophic financially,
This is going to be devastating financially, and it is
it is probably going to be almost impossible for these
people to rebuild and expect to get homeowners insurance.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, that's a that's a conversation we were actually having
last night because I think you know, you've seen that
in parts of Florida when when hurricanes, you know, hit
certain areas over and over again, the insurance companies just
pull out. They're like, Nope, we're not insuring in that
area again because the loss is just is too much.
And I agree with you. If you if your home
(03:26):
is burned, first of all, and you don't have insurance,
what do you do if you do have insurance? How
quickly can you get the funds? Do you want to
rebuild in this area? And you try and sell the property,
the land, the charred land, who's come buy it?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah? I mean the views are going to be magnificent
again at some point.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
But it's not like.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
They get a lot of rain to repopulate that area
with greenery. This is just it's devastating what's happening right now.
I didn't mean to go down that road.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
But so are they?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Is there any like a further weather relief that they
can expect? I mean, what is their precipitation situation?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
You know, I haven't looked beyond that. What we what
would love to be able to do is talk about
you know, the old the Pineapple Express, or an atmosphere
river or something that would point the fire hose towards
the west coast and help them out. I don't see
anything like that that. The pattern right now is more
Pacific northwest and across Colorado and the Rockies and on
to the east than it is from the southwest and
(04:23):
in their direction. So hopefully they can get some relief,
you know, sometime soon. But yeah, I think the overall pattern,
you know, this is that dry part of the year. Unfortunately,
when those winds pick up out there, all it takes
is a small spark, and it always seems to happen,
unfortunately when the winds are roaring.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Dave Fraser, I didn't even look to see if we
had weather questions. Hang on, let me open up the
e Commons burials tack line five sixty six. N I
know this question for you, Dave. When you say the
Santa Ana winds last night on your weather broadcast, did
you say they come down from the east side of
the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, they blow. They blow from the mountains to the
west towards the Pacific Ocean. So what happens is high pressure.
The wind around high pressure goes clockwise, and so high
pressure builds on the east side of the sand of
the Sierra Mountain range and the wind flows around that
down the face of the Sierras, goes through some of
(05:22):
the lower elevations and the desert areas, it compresses, it heat,
it picks up the dry air. Then it continues to
roll over the higher terrain in the cliffs and the
ledges towards the west coast and down into those communities,
and it blasts out through the canyons, and so the
canyon's funnel and strengthen the wind. We see that here
all the time. We talked on your show many times
(05:44):
about downsloping wind and how it's a drying wind. So
as you move the air here in Colorado from the
mountains in an easterly direction down towards Denver, that downward
motion is like turning on a hair dryer. It compresses,
it heats, and it drives the air. And so we
end up with that. And we see at times when
the wind is funneling through like Chake Cole Creek Canyon.
(06:04):
You can get a blast of wind out along Highway
ninety three between Boulder and Golden that is just, you know,
just unbelievable, flipping trucks over. So they're dealing with it.
It's just going the other way. It's going west. Towards
the ocean. As a matter of fact, those fires were
driven right up to the Pacific Coast Highway and the
next stop was the ocean.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Okay, I got one more question for you, Dave. This
one about something I know about and hate. Out of
all of our weather things that you can endure on
a regular basis, ice storms are the worst, and I
experience them in Kentucky. And I have a listener who
just moved to Kentucky who said back this question. Mandy
asked Dave how a snowstorm can turn to an ice
(06:45):
storm when the temperature on the ground doesn't change. First,
Kentucky ice storm wasn't really fun and ice storms are horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So that part of the country I'm familiar because I
lived in Cincinnati ice belt area from say Saint Louis
across you know, across the Midwest Saint Louis over towards
you know, say, Cincinnati and parts of Kentucky. And what
happens is you have a shallow layer of cold air
at the ground. The temperature doesn't need to change. It's
just cold enough that as the moisture comes through, it's
(07:19):
not freezing overhead, so it's not coming as snow. It's
coming as rain. It gets into that cold, shallow layer
close to the ground and it freezes on contact. So
you know, it's just one of those situations where everything
in the lowest part of the of the atmosphere at
ground level is cold enough that any moisture that hits
it freezes instantly, and so you don't you're not going
(07:42):
to get a lot of temperature. Now if it was,
if it was colder, then you would be dealing with
all snow as the snowflakes fall to the ground, but
you're not. You're dealing with warmer air aloft hitting colder
air at the surface, and it just turns into a
sheet of ice and accumulating ice, and it is nasty and.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It hangs on your power lines and then they snap
and it is just the most miserable experience to just
get through it. It's so awful.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Anyway, Yeah, go ahead, Dad, We'll take six inches of
snow over a tenth of an inch of ice.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Amen to that, my friend, Amen to that. Dave Fraser,
Good to talk to you as always. We will chat
again next week. Happy twenty twenty five, my friend.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, let's hope it's a good one. It will be
well willing to be.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
We'll do the assumed clothes, all right, Dave uh, there
you go.
Fox thirty one's chief meteorologist, Dave Frasier. Dave, it's winter,
A winter's here.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Yes, it is. Welcome to twenty twenty five.
Speaker 1 (00:10):
Let's kick the Dorian on winter. So what are we
looking at right now and how much of our weather
is polar vortex or just cold.
Speaker 2 (00:18):
Just cold, just called As a matter of fact, you
probably saw the reports there the big storm earlier in
the week that just left us last weekend, that was
our Saturday storm and then rolled literally straight down I
seventy all the way to the east coast and just
retavoc all the way through the Midwest and into the
Ohio River Valley. They've got the you know, the polar
(00:40):
vortex and the poldest of it. We were on the
western fringe, but our pattern definitely switched. We knew that
a little more than a week ago that we get
into a little bit of a colder pattern that's certainly
going to trend through about next Tuesday before we start
to warm back into the forties. So we'll just kind
of stay in the thirties. And we got two chances
for snow one tomorrow that one could accumulate the one
(01:01):
to two inches during the day and then we've got
a chance of a few flurries or light snowshows on
Saturday that one doesn't look to do much, so certainly
a more active pattern. But the good news we're ahead
for snow for where we are in the month of
January and for the here yay, that's awesome.
Speaker 1 (01:17):
You know, as they say, we need the moisture, we
need the moisture. Speaking of needing the moisture, boy, what's
happening in California right now is really scary. How much
I mean, is there any relief coming for them that
you can see? Over those one hundred mile per hour
winds that they're facing. They're just driving these fires.
Speaker 2 (01:38):
Later this afternoon and later tonight, the wind should start
to relax. So we were actually tracking that last night
our sister station KTLA in Los Angeles. We were taking
their feed. It's an unfortunate situation. The sant and the
winds were howling future cast wind speeds were going to
keep the speeds at the seventy plus mile per hour
(01:59):
all night last night and should start to relax a
little bit today. Now the wind's not going to go calm,
but those stronger gush should start to relax through the
day to day. But we all know, unfortunately here in Colorado,
what that can mean. The Marshall Fire obviously the most
recent one. Once you start to burn with that kind
of a wind in neighborhoods with you know, natural brushes
(02:20):
and grasses and trees, it becomes you can't defend it,
winding roads up, kurvy terrain, EA kills and it's just impossible.
And you feel for the homeowners and the people who
had to flee and literally running from their cars, out
of their cars and running because the traffic was so
bad they felt like they just needed to keep going.
(02:41):
It's just a horrible situation. It's literally hell on earth,
and I feel for them.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
I shudder to think what this is going to do
because these are this is going to be so catastrophic financially,
This is going to be devastating financially, and it is
it is probably going to be almost impossible for these
people to rebuild and expect to get homeowners insurance.
Speaker 2 (03:05):
Well, that's a that's a conversation we were actually having
last night because I think you know, you've seen that
in parts of Florida when when hurricanes, you know, hit
certain areas over and over again, the insurance companies just
pull out. They're like, Nope, we're not insuring in that
area again because the loss is just is too much.
And I agree with you. If you if your home
(03:26):
is burned, first of all, and you don't have insurance,
what do you do if you do have insurance? How
quickly can you get the funds? Do you want to
rebuild in this area? And you try and sell the property,
the land, the charred land, who's come buy it?
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Yeah? I mean the views are going to be magnificent
again at some point.
Speaker 2 (03:44):
But it's not like.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
They get a lot of rain to repopulate that area
with greenery. This is just it's devastating what's happening right now.
I didn't mean to go down that road.
Speaker 2 (03:53):
But so are they?
Speaker 1 (03:54):
Is there any like a further weather relief that they
can expect? I mean, what is their precipitation situation?
Speaker 2 (04:01):
You know, I haven't looked beyond that. What we what
would love to be able to do is talk about
you know, the old the Pineapple Express, or an atmosphere
river or something that would point the fire hose towards
the west coast and help them out. I don't see
anything like that that. The pattern right now is more
Pacific northwest and across Colorado and the Rockies and on
to the east than it is from the southwest and
(04:23):
in their direction. So hopefully they can get some relief,
you know, sometime soon. But yeah, I think the overall pattern,
you know, this is that dry part of the year. Unfortunately,
when those winds pick up out there, all it takes
is a small spark, and it always seems to happen,
unfortunately when the winds are roaring.
Speaker 1 (04:43):
Dave Fraser, I didn't even look to see if we
had weather questions. Hang on, let me open up the
e Commons burials tack line five sixty six. N I
know this question for you, Dave. When you say the
Santa Ana winds last night on your weather broadcast, did
you say they come down from the east side of
the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
Speaker 2 (05:01):
Yeah, they blow. They blow from the mountains to the
west towards the Pacific Ocean. So what happens is high pressure.
The wind around high pressure goes clockwise, and so high
pressure builds on the east side of the sand of
the Sierra Mountain range and the wind flows around that
down the face of the Sierras, goes through some of
(05:22):
the lower elevations and the desert areas, it compresses, it heat,
it picks up the dry air. Then it continues to
roll over the higher terrain in the cliffs and the
ledges towards the west coast and down into those communities,
and it blasts out through the canyons, and so the
canyon's funnel and strengthen the wind. We see that here
all the time. We talked on your show many times
(05:44):
about downsloping wind and how it's a drying wind. So
as you move the air here in Colorado from the
mountains in an easterly direction down towards Denver, that downward
motion is like turning on a hair dryer. It compresses,
it heats, and it drives the air. And so we
end up with that. And we see at times when
the wind is funneling through like Chake Cole Creek Canyon.
(06:04):
You can get a blast of wind out along Highway
ninety three between Boulder and Golden that is just, you know,
just unbelievable, flipping trucks over. So they're dealing with it.
It's just going the other way. It's going west. Towards
the ocean. As a matter of fact, those fires were
driven right up to the Pacific Coast Highway and the
next stop was the ocean.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
Okay, I got one more question for you, Dave. This
one about something I know about and hate. Out of
all of our weather things that you can endure on
a regular basis, ice storms are the worst, and I
experience them in Kentucky. And I have a listener who
just moved to Kentucky who said back this question. Mandy
asked Dave how a snowstorm can turn to an ice
(06:45):
storm when the temperature on the ground doesn't change. First,
Kentucky ice storm wasn't really fun and ice storms are horrible.
Speaker 2 (06:56):
So that part of the country I'm familiar because I
lived in Cincinnati ice belt area from say Saint Louis
across you know, across the Midwest Saint Louis over towards
you know, say, Cincinnati and parts of Kentucky. And what
happens is you have a shallow layer of cold air
at the ground. The temperature doesn't need to change. It's
just cold enough that as the moisture comes through, it's
(07:19):
not freezing overhead, so it's not coming as snow. It's
coming as rain. It gets into that cold, shallow layer
close to the ground and it freezes on contact. So
you know, it's just one of those situations where everything
in the lowest part of the of the atmosphere at
ground level is cold enough that any moisture that hits
it freezes instantly, and so you don't you're not going
(07:42):
to get a lot of temperature. Now if it was,
if it was colder, then you would be dealing with
all snow as the snowflakes fall to the ground, but
you're not. You're dealing with warmer air aloft hitting colder
air at the surface, and it just turns into a
sheet of ice and accumulating ice, and it is nasty and.
Speaker 1 (08:00):
It hangs on your power lines and then they snap
and it is just the most miserable experience to just
get through it. It's so awful.
Speaker 2 (08:08):
Anyway, Yeah, go ahead, Dad, We'll take six inches of
snow over a tenth of an inch of ice.
Speaker 1 (08:13):
Amen to that, my friend, Amen to that. Dave Fraser,
Good to talk to you as always. We will chat
again next week. Happy twenty twenty five, my friend.
Speaker 2 (08:21):
Yeah, let's hope it's a good one. It will be
well willing to be.
Speaker 1 (08:24):
We'll do the assumed clothes, all right, Dave uh, there
you go.
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