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of opportunity. The invasion of Europe to start WWII hinged on his weather forecast. Mr. Lundahl used this historical example to illustrate the importance of weather forecasting in water manager activities. NOAA-National Weather Service (Boulder) - Treste Huse (Senior hydrologist) Ms. Huse showed satellite image from the morning. She observed that the fire danger class has more fire danger now. Its better than 2002 but recent warm weather has Colorado getting to more dangerous levels. Currently there is a trough over the west coast. We could get some thunderstorms out ofthis system. We will get a cold front moving through with light a drizzle. This is more like an April or May pattern not so much in June. This meant that we are getting the jet stream a little further south and that should produce some increased moisture in Colorado. There is a fairly active pattern with a low-pressure trough. We could see a Denver cyclone and thunderstorms over the Palmer Divide on Thursday and in the Front Range and Denver Metro Area. Friday afternoon a second cold front moves through with cooler temperatures and cold air coming down. We could get some gulf moisture in the beginning of July. The best precipitation will be on the eastern slopes and eastern plains next week. Summer Precipitation Outlook HDR Engineering - John Henz John Henz mentioned a recent instability in the weather. During the last ten years he has work with the Flood Task Force. He is tasked to speculate what will happen in the summer. In Leena Gulch just south of Golden, Colorado we had 2.5 inches in a just 30 minutes that equates to rain rates a 5 inches per hour. There are signs and messages in the atmosphere of unstable weather patterns. We are living in interesting times, searching for water on Mars and finding it. We are finding and ozone holes on Saturn. Mr. Henz made reference to a recent Chips Barry quote in the newspaper, "I wish we could get back to normal, whatever that is?" In answering Chips question in terms of temperature. June is a bit warmer and July and August are 2 degrees warmer over the last ten years (1994- 2003). In looking at the number of days above 90 degrees from 1994 to 2003, it appears that we have picked up a lot of heat. It has been very warm in the summer season. There have been 63 days above 90 degrees more than normal for the period of 2000- 2003. In the last few years we have had many more days than normal. That is why the last four years have been so difficult for the Drought Task Force. When you look all the way back to the 1870s at observed temperatures, we have had more 90-degree days in the 2000-2003 period than any other time in the last 100 years. There have not been a lot of storms in this recent hot period. NIN03 Anomalous [1960-79 Ban) Temperature- Predil;;tion Began 199806 (large Observed) by OynaPred ExperimentaLEL~ ino/LaJ.J ina_Outlook . ., ., ., Ju e 1_.... ....~....AO!=I1'....E:DICl()r>l,NlhIr. "'HI!!DICTIOt"WhOI~) ___OEl'S1!:1'(\t1:0 I Note: El Nino periods are associated with wetter than average weather in parts of Colorado Experimental forecasts 1980 through 2010 show an index oftemperature anomalies in the Pacific. For the last four or five years we really haven't had one. It is warmer than normal but not a real El Nino. The Yampa/White watershed are tinder box dry and of higher forest fire danger. Mr. Henz believes that the southwest will not be the high fire danger area this year. The North Park and 1-70 corridor will be more likely to have high danger. He thinks it should be an average monsoon season, but it may not be enough to top off the reservoirs. This monsoon season will not penetrate into northern Rockies like we would like it. We will have an average July, leaving the hot dry spells behind us. To finish his presentation Mr. Henz made the observations about neighboring states and reservoirs like Lake McCounahey and Lake Mead slowly drying up. He observed that we have had a few good wet months in recent winters but we need a wet six-month winter to help recover. The big reservoirs are drying up slowly. When it comes to Lake Mead, we are getting close to emergency levels. This entails dragging boats across sand to get at water. 2