DIA weather recording alters our temp records
Re: “100-degree sizzlers here to stay as summers get hotter,” Aug. 11 news story
Any discussion of Denver weather records must include the fact that the official recording site was moved to Denver International Airport (DIA) when opened in 1995. This location has a different microclimate than the previous site of Stapleton Airport, situated 12 miles to the southwest of DIA. Before Stapleton, weather records were taken in downtown Denver dating back to 1872.
On Sunday, Aug. 4, the daily record high of 102 set at DIA would not have been a record at Denver Central Park (Stapleton) where the daily high was 96. In fact, none of the five daily record highs set at DIA this summer would have been records at the previous Denver sites. DIA has reached 100 degrees on six days in 2024, while the highest temperature recorded at Central Park has been 99.
With all the media hype of man-made climate change and record heat, we need to be careful not to compare apples and oranges with weather stats going out to the world representing Denver. Average annual precipitation also tends to run a bit lower at DIA, and snowfall is quite often less at the airport due to its proximity farther away from the mountains.
Dave Larison, Longmont
Editor’s note: Larison is a retired National Weather Service meteorologist.
News flash to Tina Peters and John Case: Trump won in Mesa County in 2020?
Re: “Former Colorado clerk Tina Peters, election deniers hero, found guilty in election computer breach,” Aug. 12 news story
In his post-conviction rationale for the necessity of former Mesa County clerk Tina Peters committing felonies by unlawfully permitting unauthorized access to voting systems, her attorney, John Case, stated in The Post that she had to break the law in getting election denier operatives into the system to find out whether anyone from “China or Canada” had accessed the machines while ballots were being counted. “And thank God she did. Otherwise, we wouldn’t know what happened,” he said.
What happened was that Donald Trump won Mesa County in 2020 with 62.8% of the vote to Joe Biden’s 34.8%. The votes cast in Mesa County were 56,894 for Trump against 31,536 for Biden. However, in Colorado as a whole Biden won 55.4% to 41.9% The statewide vote was Biden 1,804,352 to Trump 1,344,607. This is an example of the “Stop the Steal” operation at its most absurd. Peters violated Colorado law and the security of our elections to protect us from the Chinese or Canadians in a county that Trump won overwhelmingly. As a former Colorado prosecutor, I have always put my trust in the common sense of jurors.
Richard L. Nathan, Greenwood Village
Tina Peters received a well-deserved conviction of multiple felonies regarding her role in the breaching of election security in Mesa County. Her buddy Mike Lindell, the pillow guy, continues to spew election fraud lies in addition to the many lies spewed by the MAGA crowd without a single shred of evidence supporting their claims.
Let’s be clear, there wasn’t any question about election integrity until Donald Trump came along. For months before the 2020 presidential election, Trump laid the groundwork for his lies claiming election fraud by basically exclaiming that “If I don’t win, the election is rigged.” It’s amazing how many of his supporters believed the lie. It really is kind of a Trump cult.
Let’s also be clear that the reason Joe Biden was declared the winner late, after Election Day, was because a handful of states, including Pennsylvania and Arizona, both controlled by Republican state legislators at the time, decided that they were not going to count the early mail-in ballots, which typically favors Democrats by a good margin, until after the polls closed on election night. These ballots went strongly for Biden overnight. He didn’t win these states because of faulty election machines or stolen Trump votes or illegal aliens voting or any of that other nonsense spewed by the Trump cult.
And yet, a majority of Trump supporters still believe, without any proof, that the 2020 election was stolen. And now, Trump is laying the groundwork for more lies about election fraud in 2024. Election deniers have been appointed to certify (or not certify) elections in several battleground states. These deniers can believe whatever they want, but I am certain that the truth about election results and security, which has never been stronger, will always win the day in our great nation.
Jim Ciha, Grand Junction
Why are diesel pickups blowing smoke?
I’m not sure why, but this summer in Western Colorado, I have seen more diesel pickups than ever emitting clouds of thick, black smoke. I have a diesel pickup I bought new 16 years ago, and it releases no visible smoke. This leads me to believe that these trucks, most of which are much newer than mine, have been modified to produce this smoke, which is dangerous to our health and environment.
Why are these trucks allowed to be on the road, and why do local police and county sheriffs not pull them over and cite the drivers?
David Ryan, Montrose
Look beyond “the self-serving purveyors of propaganda”
Re: “Liberal philanthropists have their sights set on local news,” Aug. 2 commentary
Michael Watson’s entire commentary regarding funding our local news is based upon the flawed premise that journalism can be bribed into delivering false or misleading information, something he labels partisan journalism. According to Merriam-Webster, journalism (in part) is “writing characterized by a direct presentation of facts or description of events without an attempt at interpretation.” Watson envisions local news as a choice between one side’s misinformation versus the other side’s misinformation.
We already have that in the form of biased theatrical commentators like Sean Hannity, Joe Rogan and Stephen Colbert. They are not journalists. The fact that too many readers/viewers believe all those sources of partisan blather, as though it entailed a dogged pursuit of truth, is the greatest threat to our nation’s stability.
What if all of us sincere pursuers of truth and factual information paid a little to support real journalists and turned off the self-serving purveyors of propaganda so we can enjoy life and each other more?
Norm Davey, Centennial
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