Raster Based GIS Conference

Colorado Severe Weather Risk


Colorado is notorious for quickly changing weather conditions and different types of weather hazards. While winter weather and snowstorms are commonly thought of in this state, other severe weather including high wind (during any time of the year), large hail and tornadoes have the potential to be problematic and dangerous to life and property as well. The question is where is at a higher risk for all three of those. The project goal is focused on those weather hazards, finding which localized areas have more frequent instances of severe weather and then combining those outputs to highlight the overall weather risk in Colorado. Severe hail and tornado data are easily available and after trimming the data to a 20-year period and clipping to an extent of Colorado with some buffer, kernel density could then be used. Wind data was more of a challenge and required much more data preparation and then interpolation to show the average wind gust. The end map product is a fuzzy overlay to showcase the areas in the state that are most prone to high wind gusts, hail, and tornadoes.

About this Student
I'm from Colorado and have long had an interest in geography and the earth sciences. After completing an associate degree of science, I made the decision to pursue the full GIS Certificate at FRCC along with doing a couple GIS internships through the GeoEx Center. During this time I’ve gained a lot more confidence with everything related to GIS. Another passion I have is meteorology, so I'm looking for any way I can use GIS for weather related topics and data. Other hobbies I have are photography, hiking, nature and bird watching.