CIRA Science Stories
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: March 13th, 2025
Weather forecasts support transportation in the United States, enhancing decisions around safety. CIRA researchers pulled together some relevant numbers from past U.S. research on aviation and driving.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: March 13th, 2025
Weather forecasts support the U.S. energy industry for both renewable production estimation and load demand forecasting — predicting electricity need. CIRA researchers pulled together some relevant numbers from past U.S. research on load forecasting, hydroelectricity and solar electricity.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: March 12th, 2025
Weather forecasts support decision-making in agriculture. CIRA researchers pulled together some relevant numbers from past U.S. research for three agricultural products: raisins, lettuce and wine.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: March 12th, 2025
The increase in severe fires, especially along the wildland-urban interface, continues to be a massive impact on the national economy; the LA fires alone caused in excess of $164 billion in damages. Currently, use of satellite data in fire forecasting is limited. Hilburn and fellow CIRA researchers forecast wildland fire behavior using satellite information and machine learning.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: March 12th, 2025
Multiple Colorado State University researchers work on an interdisciplinary, multi-institutional effort to support decision-making related to wildfires. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration established a Fire Weather Testbed in 2023 based at the Global Systems Laboratory in Boulder, CO. The Fire Weather Testbed fosters collaboration between researchers and operations teams.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: March 12th, 2025
Colorado State University researchers are working collaboratively to evaluate emerging AI weather forecast models and provide resources to help other researchers investigate their usefulness. While they’re enthusiastic about the future of AI weather forecasting, they also agree that AI cannot replace traditional forecasting at this time.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: February 28th, 2025
Building out software displaying three-dimensional clouds across the world requires interagency cooperation and bringing multiple sources of information together into one spot. Researchers said the work is well worth the effort to help airline pilots chart safe courses.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: February 25th, 2025
Researchers at NOAA’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere know the importance of color and have worked to make the vibrant satellite imagery that often appears in news outlets possible. CIRA’s GeoColor product provides a standard form of imagery.
New Software, Hazard Services, successfully supports Charleston weather forecast office during Hurricane Helene
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: February 21st, 2025
During Hurricane Helene, the weather forecast office in Charleston, South Carolina successfully tested software built in collaboration with CIRA researchers to issue 67 warnings, including 39 for tornadoes.
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: February 19th, 2025
Researchers at Colorado State University’s Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere buzz with anticipation for a new set of weather satellites scheduled to start launching in the early 2030s. Watching over the Western Hemisphere, GeoXO satellites will support short-term forecasting, extreme weather warnings and long-term planning. “CIRA has been collaborating with NOAA for decades… Read more »
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: February 3rd, 2025
The Cooperative Institute for Reasearch in the Atmosphere community is celebrating researcher Kristi Gebhart’s retirement number two after a career of working toward improved air quality in U.S. national parks. How does one celebrate retirement twice? After Gebhart retired from the National Park Service in 2020 having devoted 34 years to improving national parks air… Read more »
Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: January 8th, 2025
Typically, for climate studies, a researcher might work with forty years of data to account for variation that happens across multiple years. When Cindy Combs started working at CSU, satellites that collect relevant data had not been up for very long. Over thirty years later, Combs is retiring from CSU’s Cooperative Institute for Research in… Read more »