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BOULDER, COLORADO\u200a\u2014\u200aNine flat screens fill a wall, each one in turn filled with a perpetual motion of cloud, wind, and storm animations. Some of these images come from observations collected via satellites. Others come from models used to predict the weather over the next several days and weeks.<\/p>\n
Welcome to our \u201cWeather War Room\u201d located in the bowels of the NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory in Boulder, Colorado. It is a fish-bowl of a room, encircled with windows allowing curiosity seekers to ogle the spectacle within. Welcome to our Weather War Room. Here, each day from 9:00 am to noon, I\u2019m part of a group of atmospheric scientists\u200a\u2014\u200ayoung and old, junior and senior\u200a\u2014\u200athat, energy permitting and nerves not snapping, will be stationed here until March. Each scientist brings his or her own unique insights and knowledge into the Weather War Room and each will try to make some sense of the swirl of clouds and winds.<\/p>\n
![\"A](\"http:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2016\/08\/1-JwmDzQuQo0GObdszhPUbTw.jpeg\")
A forecast briefing\u200a\u2014\u200aHoerling is at far left.<\/p><\/div>\n
For what purpose? Not to debate practical or esoteric theories of climate\u200a\u2014\u200athat luxury of academics must await another day, maybe even another month. No, our sole purpose is to guide NOAA\u2019s daily flight mission into the \u201cteeth of El Ni\u00f1o.\u201d To do this, we\u2019re assessing, interpreting, and debating the complexities of today\u2019s weather over the tropical Pacific Ocean.<\/p>\n
Our mission, which we have all volunteered for, with excitement and the expectation of new knowledge, is to determine where best to guide a NOAA Gulfstream-IV aircraft (and eventually other assets). Those flights will bring back new measurements of winds, clouds, and moisture that might hold clues to how El Ni\u00f1o affects our weather, and to see whether our models can better forecast its impact.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s all just beginning. The first new data are arriving in the Weather War Room as I write, and the G-IV is making its first traverse into the \u201cteeth of El Ni\u00f1o.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BOULDER, COLORADO\u200a\u2014\u200aNine flat screens fill a wall, each one in turn filled with a perpetual motion of cloud, wind, and storm animations. Some of these images come from observations collected via satellites. Others come from models used to predict the weather over the next several days and weeks. Welcome to our \u201cWeather War Room\u201d located… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":77,"featured_media":34,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-32","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/51\/2016\/08\/1-JwmDzQuQo0GObdszhPUbTw.jpeg","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-11 15:12:07","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category"},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/77"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32\/revisions\/35"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ciresblogs.colorado.edu\/el-nino-rapid-response\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}