HRRR Model Verification for Spanish Fork, Utah

I've grabbed the HRRR analysis forecasts, plucked out the 2-meter temperature and wind values at the location of my weather station (UKBKB), and compared that with the observations from February 2016 to July 27 2016.
(black line is the HRRR analysis, and color line is the observed value)

The HRRR's Temperature analysis does pretty well, except for periods when we are in a cold pool in mid-February.

The wind analyses are all over the place and nearly always over estimated wind speed. This could be a siting issue. My station sits in a residential area between three houses where is could be sheltered from high winds. Also, I don't think models can quite nail down the winds yet. Definitely an area of research applicable to wind farms like the one in Spanish Fork Canyon.

Would be nice to see how the HRRR forecasts verify, but I just started saving forecasts fields starting yesterday. Maybe over the next few months we'll be able to see how forecasts do.

Cascade Mountain, Utah County

I hiked Cascade Mountain, one of the seven peaks in Utah County, several weeks ago. Here is a map I gave to a friend...

Utah Lake Algea

Last week, potentially toxic algae in Utah Lake bloomed uncontrollably causing the lake to close. Check out the lake from space...

And this time lapse:

I Love Fireworks

I love watching fireworks! Since air quality is an area of interest I had to check the pollution levels around Utah from the last week. Over the last few nights you see a several-hour increase in PM 2.5 which is due to fireworks. There are very high levels in Salt Lake County on the night of the 4th due to the many large firework shows. Several nights before the 4th had high levels from other city and residential fireworks (I imagine the large city firework shows has a bigger impact than residential fireworks, but I wonder if levels have been higher since areal fireworks were legalized a few years ago). Utah County saw the highest levels on the night of July 2nd. This was the night of the Stadium of Fire.