On Friday, March 2, 1990, a young, brash, confident meteorologist addressed the daily news editorial meeting at KCNC-TV (then “Colorado’s News Channel,” now “CBS4”) and stated that a blizzard would strike Colorado’s Front Range on Tuesday of the next week.
His declaration was met with skepticism bordering on pure disbelief. According to conventional wisdom, it was “impossible” to know Colorado’s weather more than one to two days in advance. Historically, that had been true: A young science, meteorology had been growing over the past century much like a puppy does from eight weeks to six months old.
Many of the essential physical and thermodynamic elements of weather were well understood during the first half of the twentieth century; the problem was how to “model” those behaviors into the future. The size of the atmosphere is mind-boggling. In just the lower parts, where most of our weather is formed, it’s roughly 854 million cubic miles in volume, moving at speeds up to 260 mph, all the while being very unevenly heated by the sun’s energy.