Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: April 24th, 2025

CIRA researchers have developed AI to forecast rapid intensification of hurricanes. The research could support hurricane forecasts in the future to better protect homes and lives in the Southeastern United States.

Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: April 10th, 2025

Paul Hamer reflected positively on his colleagues at CIRA and NOAA’s Global Systems Laboratory. “Who, I’m sure, will continue to make huge contributions to the weather enterprise,” said Hamer.

Author: Theresa Barosh Posted: April 8th, 2025

Software developers received outstanding feedback on their latest efforts to support severe storm warnings, Convective Hazard Services. The software, still in a testing phase, is currently experiencing threats to completing the process to full adoption due to staffing and funding limitations.

Author: Dr. Matthew A. Rogers Posted: March 24th, 2025

CIRA research, along with all research done by NOAA Cooperative Institutes, is a force multiplier for NOAA and provide valuable, cost-saving products that improve our national forecast abilities, help American industries, and save lives. Learn more about some of these research areas and what is needed to continue this valuable partnership.

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.

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 and across several generations of geostationary satellites,” said Atmospheric Science Professor Steven Miller, Director of CIRA. “We look forward to working with the new array of instruments on GeoXO, which promise to change the game in terms of timely, detailed, and accurate weather information for the operational forecaster.” Why so much excitement years out from mission launch?   The project recently moved into a critical design phase. The final decisions about the technology and spacecraft are coming into place, and CIRA researchers use their expertise in satellite technology to support NOAA’s Geostationary Extended Observations (GeoXO) satellite system long before launch. GeoXO will provide important satellite information for weather researchers and forecasters until the late 2050s.   Preparations for GeoXO started in 2019 with determining requirements for instruments and spacecraft. As a cooperative agreement between NOAA and CSU’s Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering, CIRA plays an important role in each new GOES satellite. Housing one of the primary test sites for initial transmissions and sensor verification, CSU researchers have been supporting weather satellites since CIRA’s establishment 45 years ago.   CIRA operates a Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite (GOES) Earth Station. The CIRA GOES Earth Station includes satellite dishes, an online archive and high-performance computing resources. Basically, it is a radio station on earth to communicate with weather satellites in space. The large satellite dishes strike an impressive image when visiting the foothills campus, home to CIRA and CSU’s Department of Atmospheric Science.   With a variety of instruments and sensors, the information coming from satellites needs to be processed to be most useful for forecasters and researchers. In preparation for GeoXO, CIRA researchers are conducting simulations and planning for updating systems. Simulations allow researchers to predict what the new satellite information will bring, including benefits and areas for product improvements.   Promise of New Measurements  Researchers will use information from GeoXO for sophisticated forecasting models related to tornadoes, wildfires, flooding, snowstorms and other events. Providing advanced warning of environmental hazards to policy- and decision-makers improves risk management and public safety.  GeoXO plans include a constellation of three satellites. The satellites will match the Earth’s rotation to stay above North America with western, central and eastern locations.     CIRA researchers are excited about a slew of new and improved instruments planned for placement on GeoXO satellites. BAE Systems out of Boulder, Colorado will be responsible for building an air quality instrument, an instrument to analyze ocean data, and the GeoXO Sounder instrument, which the National Weather Service will use to improve weather forecasts.  Some instruments will provide measurements at new angles or more consistently compared to current satellite technology. For example, while current weather satellites already allow for visualization of lightning flashes,… 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 quality, she worked part time for CIRA for four years to complete and transition her projects to others.   “Kristi has enjoyed a long and productive career both on the Federal and University sides of CIRA. A big question when it comes to air quality is attribution, or maybe put more simply, who or what to ‘blame’ when (e.g.) you can’t see to the other side of the Grand Canyon,” said Steven Miller, Director of CIRA, “Through a combination of back-trajectory modeling and observations, Kristi perfected the art of attribution by disentangling local measurements in terms of their varied sources and histories.”    Gebhart was part of a multidisciplinary team of government and university scientists and engineers at CIRA located at Colorado State University in Fort Collins. The team worked to understand air quality issues in parks nationwide. Her primary expertise was in source-receptor relationships, especially back trajectory and receptor modeling. This involved analyzing air quality data collected in the parks, then using statistical relationships and meteorological modeling to infer locations and types of sources that contribute to air quality impairment.     Gebhart was involved in the nationwide Interagency Monitoring of PROtected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) monitoring program since its inception in 1988 and participated in large air quality studies at Grand Canyon, Mt. Rainier, Shenandoah, Big Bend, Rocky Mountain, and Grand Teton National Parks. Results of some of these studies led directly to emissions reductions that ultimately improved air quality in the parks.  Gebhart earned her B.S. and M.S. degrees in meteorology at the University of Utah and was later recognized as a distinguished alumna. After working as an air quality scientist for an environmental consulting firm for a short time, she joined the U.S. National Park Service in 1986. She is a past chair of the Air & Waste Management Association’s Visibility and Radiative Balance Technical Subcommittee and a member of the American Meteorological Society.   She is married to Howard Gebhart, who also worked in air quality, and they have three children and two grandchildren.  “We congratulate Kristi on her important work, which has made a difference in assuring our Nation’s treasured scenic vistas are protected in the past, present and future,” said Miller, “and wish her a forward trajectory of retirement that is equally fulfilling.” 

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 the Atmosphere after a meaningful career working to make satellite data available for climate studies and other research. CIRA is a collaboration between NOAA and the Walter Scott, Jr. College of Engineering.  “There’s so much we still don’t know. This planet works on its own pace and its own rules, and we’re still just figuring out the rules. It’s a very complex and beautiful planet. Just when you think you know what’s going on, then something will happen,” said Combs, “You’ve got to be open enough to say, ‘okay this doesn’t fit the theory; that doesn’t mean it’s wrong’.”  Combs was a leader of a project starting in the 1990s working on regional cloud climatologies. She worked to make cloud information available and used it to answer questions about how clouds influence Earth’s weather system. With expertise in programming, Combs started the project writing code from scratch. She said there were no packages — pre-written, organized code — to build on. The resulting products were transitioned to National Weather Service offices, including at Wakefield, VA, Cheyenne, WY and Eureka, CA where they provided guidance to weather forecasters.  “Cindy mentored several high school and undergraduate hourly employees as part of the project, who gained valuable experience with data processing and satellite meteorology,” said Mark Demaria, a fellow researcher at CIRA, “This was a very successful project, which spanned over a decade.”  Other research efforts by Combs have enhanced understanding of soil moisture, redwoods, milky seas and topics beyond the atmospheric sciences. In a recent review of over 1600 publications, Combs found that researchers use low-light nighttime satellite data to conduct research on a myriad of topics.   “I’ve worked with a lot of great people. I’ve done a lot of great things,” said Combs, “It’s been good.”  Combs retires from CSU with a legacy of research and collaboration. Future research at CIRA will continue to grow on the building blocks that Combs established.   “Cindy is a really warm, down-to-earth person, a careful data scientist, and a consummate team player.  Over our many years of research interactions, I’ve always been able to count on her to take on the drudgery with a smile and can-do attitude, resulting in some important research outcomes that she can be very proud of!” said CIRA Director Steven Miller, “She has always been a special part of our team and will be missed.  Wishing you all the best in your new chapter, and congratulations, Cindy!”  Combs looks forward to traveling and spending time with family post-retirement. She plans to continue learning by taking courses and trainings offered in the CSU and greater Fort Collins community.