The Colorado Avalanche Information Center (CAIC) provides weather and avalanche forecasts for the Colorado mountains. Weather events create avalanche conditions, making the weather forecast essential to understanding avalanche forecasts and conditions. Here is a short overview of the CAIC's weather forecasts to help you use them.
Homepage Forecast:
From the homepage, click on the map or type in a place name to open the forecast in a side panel. The forecast panel has three tabs: Avalanche Forecast, Forecast Discussion, and Weather Forecast. In the Weather Forecast tab, you'll find:
- Weather Summary: A CAIC forecaster issues a summary of the current weather forecast by 6:00 AM and 1:00 PM each day. The summary covers the Colorado mountains over the next 48 hours but focuses on areas or periods where the weather will have an immediate impact on avalanche conditions.
- Weather Forecast Table: The table has a weather forecast for four 12-hour periods (a day is 6:00 AM to 6:00 PM, and a night is 6:00 PM to 6:00 AM). The default forecast is from the National Weather Service (NWS). At the top-right of the table, you can change the forecast source to "CAIC" to see the CAIC's numerical weather model (CAIC WRF HiRes). You can change the location of your weather forecast by moving the pin in either the homepage map of Colorado or the zoomed-in inset map. To the right of the inset map, you can click a link to get a more detailed (i.e., hourly) forecast from the CAIC's model for the same location.
Weather Menu:
From the main website menu, look under "Weather" for web pages on both weather forecasts and weather observations.
- Weather Forecast - Read the summary issued twice daily or get a detailed point forecast for anywhere in the Western U.S.
- Forecast Models - Find highly technical information, including planer sections and animations from several weather models.
- Point Forecasts - Weather forecasts for specific locations featuring simulated balloon soundings, wind roses, and time-height plots.
- Weather Stations - Real-time weather observations from stations around Colorado.
Tips for using our weather forecasts
Scale matters - The avalanche forecasts cover large areas, often 1000 square miles or more. The weather forecasts are for a specific point or location. Ensure you click where you are going or search for the specific place to get the right data.
Elevation matters - Forecast numbers change based on the elevation. Weather models use a coarse representation of terrain, so the model elevation may be slightly lower than the actual terrain.
Time matters - Confidence is highest in the first 12 hours. As computer models project further out, small initial errors can grow into significant discrepancies.
NWS Forecasts - These are gridded numerical models enhanced by human forecasters from the National Weather Service.
CAIC Forecasts - These come from the Weather Research and Forecasting Model (WRF) operated by the CAIC. The CAIC WRF HiRes uses a 2km nested grid for high precision over Colorado.
