In Denver, a heat advisory triggers the opening of cooling centers and alerts residents to avoid exertion during the hottest parts of the day. Still, even the heat advisories are crucial for public health. The weather service has three tiers of alerts about weather - advisories, watches, and warnings - but the Denver region hasn’t reached the most severe tiers. But the heat was high enough under the new system to issue a heat advisory. That put the traditional heat index at 94 degrees, below the threshold for a heat advisory, Schlatter said. On July 18, for example, Denver had a high temperature of 100 degrees and a relative humidity of 13%. It shows up really nicely and gets to the real impact for Colorado.” “We have never been able to issue them based on the old ways of looking at heat impact,” said Paul Schlatter, sciences and operations officer with the National Weather Service in Boulder.
Since adopting the HeatRisk index at the start of the year, the weather service has issued five heat advisories for the northeastern part of the state. The result is a more defined standard for warning people about heat and a higher likelihood that an advisory will be issued in Denver and other areas of the state. and relies on local climate data to determine how much hotter than normal the temperature will be and what the hazards could be to people. Colorado’s climate is so dry that reaching the thresholds for that kind of heat advisory is nearly impossible.īut this year, the National Weather Service in Colorado adopted a prototype heat warning index, known as HeatRisk, that is used in California and other parts of the Western U.S. That’s because the heat index commonly used by the weather service to gauge the health risks of hot weather relies on temperature and humidity. Yet until this year, the National Weather Service hadn’t issued a heat advisory for the Denver metropolitan area in 13 years.
Digital Replica Edition Home Page Close Menuįor all the images of ski resorts and snow-capped peaks, Colorado is experiencing shorter winters and hotter summers that are increasingly putting people at risk for heat-related illnesses.
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