Documenting Colorado's Significant Weather Events with CoAgMET

The Colorado Agricultural Meteorological Network, operated and maintained by the Colorado Climate Center, has been recording weather at agricultural sites across the state since 1992. Now with 90 active stations, most reporting data at 5-minute intervals, we have the opportunity of using data from these sites to study specific significant weather events. CoAgMET data at four sites in northeast Colorado were previously used in the analysis of a destructive microburst event in 2020, with results published in Monthly Weather Review. One CoAgMET site, Sterling, measured a 33 m⁄s wind gust at a 2 m height. More recently, CoAgMET data recorded a powerful cold front that swept across northern Colorado in December 2022. In Fort Collins, the temperature dropped 22 degrees C in 30 minutes on December 21. CoAgMET data were used as part of a graduate-level course project to study this event. Here we share some of the analyses done on these events using CoAgMET data, and share how we communicated and disseminated this information.