DENVER — Colorado's location is within the reach of strengthening western low-pressure systems, while interactions with the Rocky Mountains brings down sloping wind east of the Continental Divide.
The wind event on Monday was called a Bora.
A Bora is caused by cold heavy air sliding down the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains by the force of gravity.
Here’s how a Bora works
It starts with a low-pressure storm system bringing in very cold air to the top of the Rocky Mountains.
The colder the air, the more dense or heavy it is. So, it literally falls down the east slope of the mountains onto the Front Range being accelerated by the force of gravity.
The greater the temperature difference between the cold sinking air parcel and the lighter air at the base of the mountains, the faster the winds blow.
Colorado also gets chinook winds which are essentially a warmer version of the Bora. With both wind events, the air sliding down the east slope of the mountains experiences air compression due to the change in pressure. That dries and warms the air.
With a chinook, that air falls into cold air and causes warming at the base of the mountains, while a bora falls into air that's already warm, so it causes cooling. Chinooks happen more in the winter while boras happen more in the spring and fall.
Those two down-sloping wind events generate the most high-wind events in Colorado.
Colorado’s location is also frequently within the greatest pressure gradient between blossoming low pressure storm systems that move into the Great Basin from the Arctic and high-pressure systems that setup to the east or southeast. The greater the pressure gradient between high and low pressure, the stronger the winds.
As a result, Colorado is the eighth-windiest state in the country when it comes to the number of High Wind Warnings issued. As Colorado's neighbor to the north, it probably comes as no surprise that Wyoming is the windiest state.
Wyoming gets all the same wind events that we get in Colorado, but there are more gaps in their mountain ranges and they also have more flat lands, so there’s more wind tunnelling and less obstructions to slow the wind down. The same can also be said for New Mexico.
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