Summit daily follow up on dust and early snow melt

The Summit daily has a detailed article about the effects of dust blowing in from Utah, and coating the snow in the Rockies. This causes the snow to melt faster, by as much as 18 days, which creates problems for water users in Colorado. The dust is from soil that is disturbed by cows and ORVs that crush bacteria, called cryptograms, that hold the soil in deserts together.

Denver City Park geese rounded up for avian flu tests

CDOW officials rounded up the geese of city park in an effort to head off calls from city residents anxious about avian bird flu. Notice that it hasn't been found, and there are no indications that bird flu is anywhere close to Colorado, or that it would cause an epidemic in humans.

CU Museum exhibit "Hatching the Past"

The CU Museum has a new exhibit selected from its extensive dinosaur egg collection. Interesting to note that the collection was made primarily by two amateur paleontologists, like Charlie Magovern and wife, Florence. It's tough to get grants to dig for dinosaurs, so having enthusiastic volunteers is a great gain for science.

Mary Taylor Young on Raton Mesa

Mary Taylor Young, author of Land of Grass and Sky gives a write up on a recent trip to Raton Mesa, which is more south central Colorado. I know people use southeastern Colorado, but I think they do so too liberally. I've heard Colorado Springs referred to as southeastern Colorado, and it's about as central as you can get.

CO Rare Bird alert

Always good finds here.

Season starts for noctilucent clouds

Some of the first sightings came in last night from Ireland of these electric-blue clouds that float on the edge of the atmosphere. These are sometimes seen as far south as Colorado.

If you see some, you can report them.

This photo is from the spaceweather.com, taken by Paul Evans from Larne, in Antrim County.

Unplug your clothes dryer, courtesy of the weather

If some scientists' predictions that the West will get drier due to global warming are true, this year is shaping up to be one that affirms those slippery causal connections.

Various statistics and comparisons with previous years are showing this year to be really dry and hot, like the warmest combined April and May on record. Fortunately, reservoirs in some parts of the state are in good condition.

Meanwhile, dry farmed wheat production this year will be half of average, at about 50 million bushels. The average is 100 million. One farmer speculates that Colorado is in a 23 year drought cycle. No quote on when it started and when it will end.

The Rocky covers a new forecast from the Rocky Mountain Area Coordination Center that ups the fire danger ante. Some reasons for the heat and dry conditions:

•“Weak” to “Moderate” La Niña conditions were declared in the eastern tropical pacific by late fall/early winter. The fall/winter precipitation patterns of 2005/2006 in the Rocky Mountain Area were similar to past La Niña events. Though there are some lingering atmospheric features from this year’s La Niña, current El Nino Southern Oscillation (ENSO) conditions and forecasted indices suggest neutral conditions through the end of 2006. Therefore, ENSO is expected to have little if any impact on the RMA climate during the summer of 2006.

• The North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) (defined by the difference between high pressure from the eastern sea board into south-central Europe versus low pressure over Iceland) was negative during the winter months of 2006. Composite anomalies of spring and summer temperature, RH, and precipitation rates during past negative NAO events paint a very bleak (hot and dry) picture for portions of the Rocky Mountain Area this summer, especially over Colorado, Wyoming and the Black Hills.

Steve Jones, well known Boulder naturalist combined these figures, as posted on the Boulder County Nature Association Listserv nature-net

This was the 12th driest spring (March-May) in Boulder since 1895, and the
driest spring since 1974. Significantly, it was the driest spring recorded
since the weather station was moved to the new location (NIST), slightly
closer to the foothills, in 1989. I moved to Boulder in 1970, so I remember
springs like this one (see 1972 and 1974) when the grass turned brown before
the end of May, but it's been a long time since that happened, so it's
somewhat of a shock. Steve

Year March April May Total

1925 0.35 0.25 1.61 2.21

1966 0.31 1.21 0.80 2.32

1954 1.16 0.83 1.33 3.32

1963 1.81 0.15 1.37 3.33

1972 0.68 1.52 1.22 3.42

1962 0.48 0.99 1.99 3.46

1919 1.49 1.65 0.88 4.02

1930 0.88 0.99 2.17 4.04

1913 0.71 1.58 1.85 4.14

1911 0.64 2.68 0.90 4.22

1974 1.22 3.07 trace 4.29

2006 2.08 1.04 1.18 4.30

Notice we're not at dust bowl levels yet.

New fossils found near Maroon Bells

New fossil tracks of a very old dinosaur were found in the Permian Maroon Formation. From the article in the Aspen Times:

Research yielded evidence of four animal species
in the tracks around the Maroon Bells. About 90 percent of the tracks
came from Diadectes, a prehistoric creature that roamed the world 70
million years before the first dinosaurs, Small said. The species was a
tetrapod, which means it was four-legged, and a herbivore. It left
tracks about 5 inches long.

With a turtle head and a lizard
body, Diadectes had qualities of both amphibians and reptiles, Small
said. Rather than a missing link, it was an "odd mixture" remaining
after amphibians and reptiles split into two distinctive groups, he
said.

Diadectes was doomed, either through further evolution or
death of the species. It was extinct shortly after it left the tracks
near Aspen.

"They didn't leave any descendants," Small said. "They were a dead-end species."

Fossils of insects and conifer trees have also been
found in the Maroon formation since the discovery of the Diadectes
tracks. Those discoveries allowed scientists to determine that the land
that became the Maroon Bells was once much closer to the equator, when
it was part of the supercontinent called Pangea. The climate was more
like India and parts of Africa, with monsoonal rains and dry conditions.


The place near the Maroon Bells where the hundreds of tracks were found
probably wasn't a superhighway for Diadectes. Small's guess is that the
sliver of land just happened to be preserved. Tracks were likely
everywhere.

Since that discovery in 2001, Diadectes tracks have
been found in the Maroon formation near Glenwood Springs and State
Bridge. It appears the herbivore proliferated.


These dinosaurs were walking around when the Ancestral Rockies were still around.

Porcupines disappearing in the West?

Does anyone know how porcupines are doing in Colorado? This New West article suggests there might some sort of decline going on.

Drought and early peak flows from melt off

Northwest Colorado isn't having much of a mud season, since precipitation in May is much below normal.

And the view from Vail indicates melt-off has peaked, earlier than normal. Is this related to the dust from Utah darkening the snow and making it heat up faster?

Part 2: NPR on dusting the Rockies from Utah

Good interview with Joyce Belnap, leading specialist in desert soil microbes that hold the soil together. When these microbes or crytopograms are run over by Jeeps, ATV's, bikes, or smashed by hooves of cows, the soil breaks loose and blows away. The dust settles on snow pack in the Rockies and makes the snow melt faster, creating havoc with managing reservoirs and thus the water supply for the Front Range.