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Becky Bolinger

@climatebecky.com
1.7K followers 510 following 2.4K posts

Climatologist, clouds, warm weather, rock and roll. You may know me from my greatest hits: Assistant State Climatologist of Colorado. Now feeling my way around consulting.

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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 5h
This paper sure is something. And this figure? What even. The caption says it's incoming solar radiation from a U.S. government satellite over Salt Lake City. Like, who the hell was the peer reviewer? I'm glad it was retracted, but it should never have been published in the first place!
Graphic of "Temperatures are from UAH satellite data" with time on the x-axis, degrees C above baseline on the y-axis. Random dots for January and July compared to an IPCC, CO2 line, 1991-2020 average line, pre-industrial baseline temperature at 0, and something labeled "Sun".
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 18/09/2026
Just thinking this morning how 10 years ago, Colorado only had one 100,000 acre wildfire on record (in 2002). Since then, we've had 6 more. Mind boggling. climate.colostate.edu/large_wildfi...
Map of Large Colorado Wildfires, with buttons for Wildfire by Size, Wildfire by Year, and Currently Active Wildfires. List of selections to view different sizes. Greater than 100,000 selected. Seven wildfires are on the map.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 07/09/2026
The Story of Jesus, A Little Golden Book. Bookcover with a white Jesus holding a lamb, a small child on his lap, two other children standing around him, a tree in the background.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 05/09/2026
Loveland
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 03/09/2026
It's the start of the fall semester and the bears have decided they want to go to college.
CSU Safety Advisory Alert 08-18-2026
08-18-2026 08:45:07
Bear reported in the Eddy Hall area. Avoid the area. Updates at https:// satety.colostate edu/
CSU Safety Alert Advisory Update08-18-2026
08-18-2026 09:04:41
SUPD is coordinating the safe removal of a bear at Eddy Hall. Avoid the area for the safety of responders and the animal. Updates at https:// safety.colostate.edu/
Today 8:24 AM
CSU Safety Advisory Alert 09-03-2026
09-03-2026 08:24:17
Police activity near Corbett Hall. Avoid the area and follow law enforcement directions. Updates at https://safety.colostate.edu/
CSU Safety Advisory Alert 09-03-2026
09-03-2026 08:40:00
UPDATE: Bear reported in the Corbett Hall area. Wildlife officers are responding to relocate the animal. Avoid the area and give responders space.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 30/08/2026
psst. I took one in 2025 too...
Screenshot of Google Maps over the southeast U.S. and the Gulf of Mexico is labeled "Gulf of Mexico".
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 30/08/2026
I took a screenshot a couple of days ago...
Google Maps screenshot of the border between U.S. and Canada, and Lake Ontario. Features are identified, including "Lake Ontario."
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 27/08/2026
Pretty sure I have the cutest lap dog of all time. For National Dog Day.
Small dog on lap. Zoomed in on small dog on lap.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 21/08/2026
That first graphic reminds me of the analysis I did for the extreme heat of March 2026. As extreme as it is now, it's nerve-wracking to consider it will be within the distribution in 50 years, no longer an outlier.
Histogram displaying the distribution of March average temperatures for California, 1895-2026. Mostly normal distribution, centered around 49°F. The 20th century normal is 48.8°F, and the 1991-2020 normal is 50.8°F. Main part of distribution ranges from 43°F to 54°F, with a few outliers around 56°-57°F. 2026 is noted with a red dashed line at 61.4°F, on the far right side of the histogram.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 02/08/2026
And Blucifer made an appearance!
Drone show over Coors Field, above Rockies scoreboard. Blue and white lights outline a horse with a red eye, towering over the DIA main terminal. A red, white, and blue outlined plane is flying above.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 02/08/2026
Watched the drone show after the Rockies game last night at Coors Field. Celebrating Colorado's 150th birthday. It was quite impressive and reaffirmed my belief that we can move away from fireworks. Less triggers for humans and animals, less fire risk, improved storytelling!
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 22/07/2026
Check on your Front Range Colorado friends today. We don’t do well in humidity.
Weather observations from Loveland CO. 87° and sunny. Winds are calm. Dew point is 63° and humidity is 46%
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 22/07/2026
I am highly annoyed by this. It’s just all going to go around me!
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 25/05/2026
In the last year in the U.S., over 10,000 monthly records have been broken, and almost 200 all time records have been broken. But apparently we hardly break records. 🤷‍♀️
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 06/05/2026
My snow dashboard still needs a bit more work on it. But it's been really helpful this season to see how much is average for a station compared to what they're actually getting, broken down by month. climatebecky.com/snow_dashboard
Screenshot of snow dashboard. Colorado selected, with map of CO and stations on the left. Loveland 2N is highlighted. Chart on the right shows monthly Loveland 2N observations and normals, with seasonal accumulations.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 06/05/2026
Major front range snow storm brings huge totals! For many locations, this one May storm dropped more snow than all of March and April combined (and March is our snowiest month!). Estes Park was the big winner with 28" of snow. Temperatures will be back around 70 on Saturday.
Snow totals map from NWS. Zoomed in on Colorado, with Snowfall Legend Measured in Inches. Widespread observations between 3 and 6 inches. From Denver to the north along the Front Range and foothills, totals range from 6 inches to over 20 inches. Higher amounts in the higher elevations.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 06/05/2026
The trees didn’t get the memo to wait. My husband took video driving through a neighborhood with many downed limbs. #cowx
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 19/04/2026
Not all March temperature records are created equally. Take a look at the differences between the record warm Marches for Arizona and Idaho. For both states, March 2026 was the warmest March in the 132-year record, using NOAA Climate at a Glance data. But it was a more significant outlier for AZ.
Quadrant scatter plots of precipitation (x-axis) vs. temperature (y-axis) for Arizona (left) and Idaho (right) for all Marches, 1895-2026. March 2026 noted with a red circle. Red dashed line shows temperature average and green dashed line shows precipitation average.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 17/04/2026
This is my new favorite graphic produced by @climate.colostate.edu and @rschumacher.cloud. It's also been quite fascinating to watch the accumulation of above average temperatures for the water year. Find it here: climate.colostate.edu/co_cag/
Colorado Water Year 2026 temperature and precipitation compared to 1991-2020 average. Temperature bars show departure from average, maps below it show temperature ranks across the state with statewide ranking. Precipitation bars are accumulated departure from average, with daily precipitation as black bars. Maps below that show precipitation ranks across the state with statewide ranking.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 11/04/2026
So much for global warming, amiright?!
Zoomed in on map of Alaska, with cold pixels over it. Ignoring the warm pixels over the entire rest of the globe.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 25/03/2026
It's 10:30 in the morning on March 25 in northern Colorado and the temperature in my backyard is 86°F. This is so not friggin' normal.
Desk with a weather station display and kitty post-it dispenser. Weather display says 0.0 MPH for wind, 0.00 for rain, 86.4°F for outside temperature with 18% humidity. Other measurements listed.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 13/03/2026
How about minimum temperatures? Well, here's the top 10 minimum temperature observations for March. It's possible that next Wednesday or Thursday morning might beat that top spot. It's also possible that 5 out of this top 10 list will be replaced with 2026 dates.
Table of maximum 1-day minimum temperature for Vegas airport for March. Top 10 spots are 65°F to 71°F. Table from https://scacis.rcc-acis.org
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 13/03/2026
The Vegas airport has been recording daily weather since 1949. In that history, temperatures at or above 90°F have occurred a total of 13 times in March (about 0.5% of all March days in the record). Next week, it's likely to happen 6 times.
Forecasts maximum temperature ranges for Vegas from Saturday, March 14 - Sunday, March 22. High temperature forecasts for Tuesday - Sunday are greater than 90°F. Line shows the probability of temperature greater than 90°F at 100% for Wed - Sat. Graphic from https://apps.gsl.noaa.gov/nbmviewer/
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 13/03/2026
We always think of Las Vegas as being very hot. This time of year, normal temperatures are quite pleasant, with an average high and low around 72°F and 51°F. The earliest observation of >= 95°F is April 2 (1966). Vegas is likely to exceed that 3 times next week, 2 weeks earlier than the earliest.
Daily temperature graph for McCarran International Airport, NV for March - May. Shows average temperature range in brown, record high temperatures in red shading, and record low temperatures in blue shading.  Graph from https://scacis.rcc-acis.org
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 13/03/2026
Air quality in northeast and southeast CO and the NE panhandle is ridiculously poor due to the wildfire near Lake McConaughy in NE. Widespread PM2.5 values in excess of 300, which is considered a "health warning of emergency conditions" for all populations.
Screenshot of air quality measurements from sensors around CO, NE, and surrounding states. High values focused over eastern CO and NE panhandle. Image taken from purpleair.comScreenshot of Fort Collins/Loveland area sensors. One sensor selected from Fort Collins with a current Air Quality Index of 367. Graph showing increase at sensor overnight and morning. Text on tooltip says ">300: Health warning of emergency conditions: everyone is more likely to be affected with 24 hours of exposure." Screenshot taken from purpleair.com
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 11/03/2026
On @nexton9news.bsky.social tonight, @bianchiweather.bsky.social pointed out that this is the first winter that the Colorado statewide average temperature has been above freezing (records date back to 1895).
Line graph of Colorado December-February Average Temperature with 2026 highlighted avg temperature: 33.6°F, anomaly: 6.4°F. Trend line over shows increasing trend since 1895.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 25/02/2026
In my analysis of the latest winter storm, I take a look at all the stations that broke or tied a record for most snowfall in a single storm. That's right, Providence wasn't the only record! Here we see it helped some stations break monthly snowfall records too. climatebecky.com/blog#noreast...
February monthly snowfall over time at Islip Macarthur Airport. February 2026 is the snowiest February in the record, dating back to 1963. Data and graph from ACIS.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 24/02/2026
@rschumacher.cloud on a state call this morning, talking about the crazy warmth we've been experiencing. The number of days Fort Collins has passed 60°F this winter, far surpasses any other winter!
Fort Collins number of days with TMAX >= 60°F, December through February. "Fort Collins has recorded 38 60°F days this winter. Previous high was 22 (1980-81). The remaining days in the month are all forecast to be 60 or above (five more).
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 21/02/2026
I joined a bowling league last summer. I have a ball that’s a Storm brand. This one is called tropical surge, and as an atmospheric scientist, this brings me extra joy.
Blue marbled bowling ball, with STORM etched in green. Blue marbled bowling ball with tropical surge etched in green with a palm tree.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 17/02/2026
New snow this week and how it might impact current snowpack levels and forecasted water supplies in the Upper Colorado River Basin - read my new blog! climatebecky.com/blog#snowpac...
NWS Weather Prediction Center 72-hour snowfall accumulation forecast map for western U.S.  Valid 00Z February 17 - 00Z February 20. Nearly 4 feet of new snow in the Sierra Nevadas with widespread 1-2 feet possible over the Cascades and interior Rockies.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 01/02/2026
I've spent the week learning a lot about using Git, Plotly, and Dash. I'm excited to work on more dashboards and share more cool products!
Bar chart showing Alaska December departure from average temperatures.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 01/02/2026
Excited to share my latest endeavor here. I made a dashboard for NOAA Climate at a Glance data. "Why would you do that if we already have Climate at a Glance?" Good question! Could be useful during maintenance downtimes, shut downs, the apocalypse. Who knows?! climate-dashboard-wc07.onrender.com
Map of the U.S. with each state colored by their average temperature ranking for December 2025. Tooltip displayed over Colorado showing Average Temperature=35.30°F, Anomaly=+10.08°F, Rank=1st Warmest.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 27/01/2026
Guess what day it is?! Happy “large boulder the size of a small boulder” day to those who celebrate! Take a moment to chuckle before returning to your regularly scheduled doom and gloom.
Screenshot of tweet from San Miguel Sheriff’s Office. “Large boulder the size of a small boulder completely blocking east-bound lane Highway 145 mm78 at Silverpick Rd. Please use caution and watch for emergency vehicles in the area.” Picture of a snowy highway with an emergency vehicle in the foreground and a large boulder the size of a small boulder ahead of it.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 25/01/2026
Broncos baby took us to the Super Bowl 10 years ago. Hoping 10-year-old broncos fan gets us there today!
Baby with pacifier in mouth, pink winter hat with Broncos logo on it. Adorable 10-year-old girl wearing an orange Broncos shirt. Tv in the background with Broncos game, score Broncos 7, Patriots 0.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 13/01/2026
Current statewide snowpack is officially record low for this date. Looking at where snowpack can go from here, we'd have to get 90th percentile snowpack accumulations between now and April to get a near average peak. This will have an impact on water supply and the wildfire season. #cowx
Graph of snowpack for the state of Colorado from NRCS. Current as of 1/11/26: % of median - 62%; % median peak - 29%; Days until median peak - 86; Percentile - 0.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 13/01/2026
For Colorado, December 1980 has long stuck out as the warmest December on record. December 2025 just beat it out. #cowx
Graph of average temperature for December for Colorado, from 1895-2025. Data from NOAA NCEI Climate at a Glance.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 12/01/2026
The Big Thompson, which is not very big, but can be very mighty!
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 01/12/2025
"And here's where we walk our guests when they start to get restless..."
Snippet of house blueprint showing "HUGE WALK/ GUEST SUITE" in a corner next to "FAMILY ROOM".
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 24/11/2025
It continued to sunset!
Pink skies with sun setting behind mountains. Trees, fields, roads in foreground.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 14/11/2025
I'm going to make up a game where you have to take a shot every time this comic becomes relevant.
6 frame comic. First frame person with MAGA hat says "if you press this button, Donald Trump will get life in prison." Second frame, person with a blue D on their chest goes to press the button and MAGA person says "But! Bill Clinton will get the same" with a smarmy look on face. Third frame, blue person hits button. Fourth frame, MAGA person looks surprised and is sweating. Fifth frame, blue person repeatedly hits button "BIP! BIP! BIP! BIP!".  Last frame, blue person still hitting button while panicked MAGA person tries to pull away from button begging "no wait"
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 12/11/2025
After a gorgeous day I get to join in on the fun! Here’s my aurora pic from Loveland Colorado!
Night sky with aurora
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 11/11/2025
What is this cold and snow you speak of? #cowx
Selfie of woman in pink tank top wearing sunglasses. Fields behind her. Time series of temperature and dew point for November 11. High temperature observation of 78.3 showing.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 11/11/2025
Too busy licking a toy to look back. But I did get an ear perk!
Dog on lap. Wearing sweater, facing away from cameraDog on lap. Wearing sweater, facing away from camera, ears perked up
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 22/10/2025
That’s what my husband said!
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 22/10/2025
Great timelapse! And such a gorgeous sky today
Blue sky with clouds. Houses, sun low in the sky.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 15/10/2025
1980s Christian rock band Petra. I played this so much, and with the scratches, I totally memorized where it would skip or get stuck. So much so that it was jarring when I later bought the CD and it didn't have those skips!
Image of vinyl record. Rainbow background with big letters spelling Star Song. Beat the System by Petra, copyright 1984 by Star Song Records.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 01/10/2025
Check out that ass tho.
Tomatoes. One tomato has a big crease in it, making it look like butt cheeks.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 24/09/2025
This one got a loud cackle from me 🤣
If you just take Tylenol PM your kids will only be autistic at night. By Golden Memed Moments. Rated S for Satire
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 16/09/2025
Ignoring the "they" for a moment. You got an "entire" generation on your side? Only 14% of the vote came from the youngest generation, and most of them voted for Harris.
Table of demographics voting for Harris vs. Trump. Age demographic: 18-29: 54% Harris, 43% Trump; 30-44: 51% Harris, 47% Trump; 45-64: 44% Harris, 54% Trump; 65+: 49% Harris, 50% Trump.
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Becky Bolinger @climatebecky.com · 07/09/2025
The best thing about the one I got last January was the moon photobomb.
From plane, above clouds with a glory in the foreground. Dark blue sky and moon above.
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