iVoteAmerica.com Welcomes the Democratic National Convention

iVoteAmerica.com is the hottest new political blog to hit the Internet and it is covering all of the events taking place at the Democratic National Convention in Denver.

iVoteAmerica allows people to become approved Authors for the right, left and middle positions of any political topic. The site includes polling and will eventually feature voter/polling/blog sites for each of the 50 States.

You can become involved any number of ways. The most natural way is to subscribe. You can also add the site to your favorites and your RSS reader.

In addition, iVote allows qualifying parties to license their own State Polling and Blog Nework, such as iVoteCalifornia.com, iVoteTexas.com, iVoteKansas.com and all of the other States.

You may request to become an iVoteAmerica Author, advertiser or simply be a commentator to those who post information.

Most importantly, whether you are on the Right, the Left or consider yourself a Centrist (the middle)you man participate in our iVote polls and express your opinion about hot political issues such as elections, national security, the media, taxes, government and more!

Visit iVoteAmerica.com and Enjoy!

Scientists Test System To Forecast Flash Floods Along Colorado’s Front Range

ScienceDaily (July 28, 2008) — People living near vulnerable creeks and rivers along Colorado’s Front Range may soon get advance notice of potentially deadly floods, thanks to a new forecasting system being tested this summer by the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colo.
Known as the NCAR Front Range Flash Flood Prediction System, it combines detailed atmospheric conditions with information about stream flows to predict floods along specific streams and catchments.

“The goal is to provide improved guidance about the likelihood of a flash flood event many minutes out to an hour or two before the waters start rising,” says NCAR scientist David Gochis, one of the developers of the new forecasting system. “We want to increase the lead time of a forecast, while decreasing the uncertainty about whether a flood will occur.”

“This project is an excellent example of using basic research findings to improve forecasts important to saving lives,” said Cliff Jacobs, program director in NSF’s Division of Atmospheric Sciences.

The Front Range, because of its steep topography and intense summer storms, is unusually vulnerable to summertime flash floods. Such floods have claimed the lives of hundreds of people and accounted for hundreds of millions of dollars in damages throughout the region’s history.

Flash floods are difficult to predict because they happen suddenly, often the result of heavy cloudbursts that may stall over a particular watershed.

Forecasters can give a few hours’ notice that weather conditions might lead to flooding, and radars can detect heavy rain within minutes.

But whether a flood hits a specific river or creek also depends on soil, topographic, and hydrologic conditions that are characteristic to particular watersheds. Thus, emergency managers may not know that a flash flood is imminent until the waters begin to rise.

The goal of the NCAR system is to provide officials at least 30 minutes warning of flash flooding in specific watersheds, and possibly as much as an hour or two.

It is designed to pinpoint whether a particular stream is likely to overflow, as well as forecast the likelihood of flash floods producing events across a larger region.

Scientists will monitor the system’s performance each day, tracking potential flood events from Colorado Springs in the south to Fort Collins in the north.

After this summer’s test of the system, researchers will evaluate its performance and make improvements as needed.

“This summer is a proof-of-concept test,” Gochis says. “If we can show that our system has some reasonable skill in predicting floods, we think officials may become more interested in using it along with their existing suites of tools.”

To predict weather events, the system utilizes National Weather Service radar observations of current conditions and short-term computerized weather forecasts. The weather forecasts are generated by NCAR’s Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model, which produces highly detailed simulations of the local atmosphere.

The system integrates the weather information with datasets about hydrology and terrain. These datasets incorporate information about land surface conditions, such as terrain slope, soil composition and surface vegetation. They also include information on stream flow and channel conditions.

By combining information about the land and the atmosphere, the system can project whether an intense storm is likely to stall over a specific area of the Front Range and how that may impact the flow of water on the ground.

“This new system is unique in that it provides a detailed forecast of the location and duration of a severe storm, as well as the watershed’s likely response to the heavy rain,” explains NCAR scientist David Yates.

“Since flash floods are complex and fast-moving events, we need to know about both weather and ground conditions in order to predict them.”

Funding to create the system came from the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is NCAR’s sponsor, as well as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Rafting Season in Colorado May thru August

When it comes to rafting in Colorado, you can choose your own speed. Spend a sunny morning lazily drifting along a calm waterway or spend it energetically paddling, getting soaked by rapids, dipping past boulders and crashing over gut-wrenching drop offs. It’s up to you. Whitewater rafting in Colorado includes a bit of everything. Your best bet is to start out conservative, then tackle more difficult trips as you gain confidence and crave bigger thrills.

As long as the weather is warm and the water level is high, you can go rafting. River levels are generally at raft-able depths from May through late August. As a general rule, the earlier in the season the swifter the river. Of course, it ultimately comes down to snowmelt and how quickly or slowly it flows from the mountains. As the season progresses, river levels quickly increase, plateau, then decrease with autumn, indicating most of the snow has already melted from the mountains and marking the end of another rafting season.

For More Information Visit www.Colorado.com

CityBlogUSA Opens Colorado Blogging Network

Phoenix, AZ, January 9, 2008. CityBlogUSA, a division of the e-Partner National Relocation and Brokerage Services Network announced that effective Monday, January 7, 2008, it would begin to market the CityBlog Resident blogging network for Colorado cities to real estate agents.

The Company launched the BETA version of CityBlogUSA in July and has been test marketing positions in selective markets in its 50-State, 25,000+ cities network to real estate agents on an exclusive basis.

Company Vice President, Robert Barringer said, “we created CityBlog with the idea that consumers want to blog about their favorite cities or hometown and to directly post information about lifestyles, real estate, jobs, health care, schools and even politics from an insider’s perspective.”

“CityBlog Colorado allows residents, businesses and real estate industry professionals to open up the local information portals for those seeking to relocate and for those residents who want to post alternative information that the newspapers, TV and magazines aren’t reporting…after all, who knows more about a community than the people who live there?”, said Barringer.

Agents can “Stake a Claim” to their city as its “Real Estate and Relocation Specialist” and hold that position exclusively, interact by posting blogs, talk about real estate and any other local issues they would like to include in the blog.

Barringer said, “The most powerful thing about CityBlog is that any resident can become an author…we are just setting up a network and trying to sell ad space…we believe in the consumer-centricity of the economy, especially when it comes to real estate and local lifestyles.”

People can blog Denver, Aspen, Pueblo, Centennial, Lakewood, Boulder, and any other city and have the same blogging experience. You can jump to any Colorado city and be blogging in minutes by going to www.ColoradoBlogPage.com, this very site.

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