By Steve Ford

This Spring, there was some discussion on the internet HG digest regarding marginal days, when to launch, and ways to determine if the day would get better. For those of us in Colorado, it often seems that we have a difficult time determining the quality of, and timing for, a given day due to our ever-changing weather at both large and small scales.

Kiernan asked me to contribute an article to the Flocker - rather than contribute only one; I'll start with a list of what I look for on seemingly stable days. Consider these things rules of thumb - you will always be modifying the list based on what you learn out there.

For starters, this assumes that I've already determined that it will be somewhat stable based on the large-scale weather features: high pressure, lack of fronts to create compression boundaries (and thus higher winds), and sunshine. I'll write another list about larger scale weather (high and low locations, winds aloft, downslope factors, front locations, etc) and what I look for with regard to some of the sites I am most familiar with. Hopefully this will stimulate some input from others regarding weather and other sites - for example, I'm not familiar enough with Villa Grove, Steamboat, Aspen, and a number of other sites to give you ideas on what to look for there. I hope others will contribute their views on the sites I don't discuss in the next article.

So, about seemingly stable days and a few other things in the mountains:

1. Stable days - do they get better? My answer is: No wind, no glass-off (I got this from Ken Grubbs).