Mike Nelson, center in white shirt, joins the crew erecting the new weather station tower at The Urban Farm. Photo courtesy of Mike Nelson
A new weather tower has been erected on the very site where the old Stapleton Airport weather station was located. It’s in the midst of The Urban Farm’s vegetable garden. Front Porch photo by Christie Gosch
Thanks to the persistence of Channel 7 meteorologist Mike Nelson, Central Park has a new weather station that will help provide more accurate forecasts and track various climate trends. For 70 years, the official weather station was located at the Stapleton Airport, but it moved when Denver International Airport opened in 1995.
For the past 20 years, Nelson has been trying to re-establish a weather station that is closer to Denver. He helped raise the funds from private donors, and last month the weather tower was finally erected on the grounds of The Urban Farm—on the very spot where it was located when the old airport was in operation. “It will be an auxiliary observation,” says Nelson. “It will completely connect that thread of 70 years of highly accurate data that was collected at Stapleton, and it will be very useful to track climate change information.”
While it won’t be the official weather station of Denver, Nelson says it will improve the accuracy of forecasts for the city. “Having that extra data point with information being sent every 10 minutes so that we can see how humidity is increasing or wind is shifting or pressure is rising or falling–that’s very useful because conditions in Denver are different than at DIA.”