Clark Evans
@clarkevanswx
I study high-impact weather, help develop high-resolution models to improve weather forecasts, and mentor scientists. Constantly striving to help those around me flourish. My views expressed here are mine alone.
Hello again to a great city on a Great Lake. A couple of years away just reinforces that Milwaukee’s parks rock hard and every city would do well to emulate them.
He brought joy to Milwaukee and the entire state of Wisconsin for over a decade. We got to watch him grow up, as a player and as a person - son, father, and husband. He was Milwaukee epitomized. Thank you, Giannis, for everything.
The sun set behind Twin Sisters in Rocky Mountain National Park this summer solstice along the Front Range.
Black-crowned night heron along Coal Creek in Lafayette, CO over the weekend. A beautiful bird in person and one of a few 9-point birds in Wingspan!
Here’s what it looked like toward the sun at the time of the first photo. If you squint, you can see crepuscular rays in most directions.
The Front Range, in two photos: 1) Friday, near sunset, with clouds splitting the sun’s rays in a spectacularly evident way. 2) Saturday, a political advertisement for a CU Regent candidate. Not a QR code to his website, but a QR code to his Strava. 🤷♂️
I did not have “tornado warning near Meeker, CO” on my bingo card for today…
$1 for each precious minute of a 4-hour meeting two years ago in which my former faculty colleagues and I did right by our students when university administration would not. Thank y’all, @edsbs.bsky.social @hollyanderson.bsky.social @newap-georgia.bsky.social et al. for fighting for what is right.
I also got the blessing of meeting the 14-month old daughter of two of my former advisees on the way out of town to Indianapolis airport. As an added bonus, their county is the 1,000th in the US that I’ve visited…because like many other meteorologists, it’s fun to track them!
I enjoyed visiting Purdue this week, during which I gave a seminar on the great modeling work at GSL and had great discussions with students, postdocs, and faculty. Thanks to @meteodan.bsky.social for inviting me, to @tornatrix.bsky.social for the picture, and to everyone for their hospitality!
Snow atop the Flatirons, Green Mountain, and the west ridge for the first time in a * long* time. #cowx
Denver Botanic Gardens, March 28 - Lilacs approaching full bloom. Beautiful, but still way too early.
I appreciated this quote from former Wisconsin Governor Gaylord Nelson in the spring edition of the Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine: “The ultimate test of man’s conscience may be his willingness to sacrifice something today for future generations whose works of thanks will not be heard.” (1/3)
Magnolias at the same park, also way too early. (But if they don’t get scorched by cold tonight, they’ll probably be in full bloom next weekend.)
Same spot, one week later. Hello, tulip! Hello, daffodil! (Way too early…)
Here's an example from the 0100 UTC 11 March NBM for Erie, CO, looking at high/low temperatures for next Wednesday to Saturday. The whiskers are the 10-90th percentile. The 50th percentile highs are 89-93°F, but the means are in the low-mid 80s because of a very few extreme outliers. #COwx
Enjoy this photo of a bald eagle high above me earlier this afternoon!
March 5, Boulder. Drop 0.25-0.5” of liquid into the ground tomorrow and follow it up with the predicted warm up and it’s going to get green in a hurry around here.
Lenticulars over the Sangre de Cristos. No, there’s not really snow below 9-10k ft. #COwx
Faintly from the DOC campus. It was better from the east coming into town on Valmont.
Almost six weeks ahead of schedule for the annual wildlife closure at Lagerman Reservoir outside of Longmont because it’s been so warm that the waterfowl are already setting to nesting.
@nws.noaa.gov Director Ken Graham presented on NOAA’s modeling grand challenge at #AMS2026 this morning. He announced that the NWS is moving to MPAS as its modeling dynamical core, with his #1 moonshot goal being a global, fully coupled 3-km Earth prediction system using MPAS.
If weather had a personality, I suspect “33 and Rain” would be going around Houston today saying, “well, well, well - look who isn’t so bad after all!” With rain ending, it looks like the city might be mostly spared. Image is the overnight obs from KIAH.
I think the closest would be to manually add the shaded field a second time as a contoured field. Here’s an example of 500 hPa height both shaded and contoured. Toggle the + option above the fields on mobile (or control-click on a new field on computer) to add fields beyond the predefined options.
It’s not quite crème de la crème cold air, as Lance Bosart might say — it takes -40°C at 850 hPa — but INL at -37°C last night is pretty impressive nonetheless. There is an ample supply of low-level cold air pushing south to facilitate the impending winter storm.