History of Mountain States Weather Services/Staff Biographies
Mountain States Weather Services (MSWS) is a private meteorological consulting and operational weather forecasting firm located in Fort Collins, Colorado with an office at 820. S. Summit View Drive.
Founded in 1977 by owner and chief meteorologist and director Jim Wirshborn, MSWS provides a variety of specialized meteorological consulting services to industry, media, government agencies, utilities, municipalities forensic, insurance and agricultural concerns.
MSWS has developed a number of weather information formats that are used to communicate weather information various users, all directly tailored to the needs of specific users and customized to their work cycle and management concerns.
Applying journalism techniques to meteorology and weather forecasting MSWS has created localized weather journalism for its media clients and services radio stations which cover parts of Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Kansas. MSWS weathercasters write, produce and deliver more than 100 customized weathercasts a day to radio 17 stations. The programs are designed for high understanding, maximum information and offer accurate weather forecasts that explain the reason behind the weather.
Facilities include a multitude of computer systems to gather data and transmit data. These systems allow MSWS state-of-the-art access to national and international data that MSWS uses to make its customized weather forecasts, real-time weather products and provide timely warning services to various clients.
The weather office in east Fort Collins operates a surface weather observing station. MSWS is an official National Weather Service cooperative observer and is part of a 10,000 station network operated by the government weather service. In addition, MSWS compiles and publishes Local Climatological Data for its site with hourly and summary of the day measurements for temperature, precipitation, snowfall, snow depth, winds, pressure and weather conditions. Proudly, MSWS has published the LCD service since October, 1976 and has summarized Fort Collins records back to 1872.
Besides Doppler radar and high resolution satellite imagery, MSWS has organized more than 100 weather observers in the region to record daily observations and phone in around the clock severe weather data which is relayed to our customers--the media, government, emergency managers and other users. This unique set of real-time data allows MSWS to produce highly localized "ground truth" for both routine and severe weather situations for our clients.
While MSWS can make weather forecasts and provide warnings for any location in North America the effort has been confined mainly to the high plains and eastern slope of the Rocky Mountain Region.
See other sections of our site with more details concerning Fort Collins Weather and Climate, the MSWS Observer and Severe Weather Network, links to Local, Regional and National Observations, radar, satellite data, stream flow and snow pack data.
Jim Wirshborn, chief meteorologist,
Mountain States Weather Services
Jim Wirshborn has made a life time study of weather and the love he has for it shows in his broadcasts and the work he does in weather, climatology and "weather journalism".
"…son, if you're gonna do something, don't do it half assed…do it all the way," is what Wirshborn's father, the late David Wirshborn, told him when he was growing up. Wirshborn has made this his mandate for life and for meteorology.
The son of an U. S. Air Force major, Wirshborn learned discipline, and dedication to whatever activity he was pursuing.
The summer of 1962, Wirshborn was visiting his Uncle David Holder at the U. S. Air Force Academy. Coming out of a Saturday evening movie the ground was covered with hail and this started a discussion about a pilot who was caught in the up and down drafts of a thunderstorm.
The hail began a ceaseless interest in weather fueled by the fact that David Holder was a former World War II weather observer. The following December, Wirshborn received a Lionel Weather Station and in the spring of 1963 began washing cars and doing odd jobs to obtain funding for upgrading his weather station.
At age 13, Wirshborn began his weather career making his first weather observation Jan. 10, 1963, at Scott Air Force Base, IL and becoming a semi-permanent fixture at the base weather station, asking endless questions and recording his observations.
Later when Wirshborn's father retired from the military the family moved to Florida were the meteorologist in charge of the Weather Bureau Airport Station at West Palm Beach, FL taught him how to plot weather maps and emphasized that forecasting starts with basic observations. This was at a time in weather history as the first TIROS satellite was launched and a revolution in meteorology and forecasting was taking place as new ways of watching the weather were coming into use.
The West Palm Beach meteorologist showed Wirshborn the weather records for the August 26-27, 1949 hurricane in which the storm center passed directly over the weather station. The meteorologist at the time was the "young man" on the staff and mention how the other meteorologist tied a rope around him and let him go out to the instrument shelter to read the thermometers in 120 mph winds and then pulled him back in. "They didn't miss a minute of observations at that station," Wirshborn said, "even when the wind equipment blew down they continued the observations by estimating the wind. They didn't bail out of the station even though destruction was all around them. This really made an impression on me. You just don't quit!"
Attending high school in Titusville, FL Wirshborn worked for the Titusville Star Advocate newspaper chasing fire engines and police cars and writing weather articles and a weekly column for the paper.
In Oct., 1969, Wirshborn flew with the U. S. Navy hurricane reconnaissance group into Tropical Storm Kara. "I wasn't 21 yet so my dad had to sign a permission slip waving Navy liability in the event of an accident," Wirshborn said. Although the storm was of minimal intensity the excitement of learning how the recon planes investigate the storms and tended to feed Wirshborn's addiction to hurricanes.
In June, 1972, Wirshborn graduated from the University of South Florida at Tampa with a degree in mass communications. This became the root of the "weather journalism" he developed in the years to come.
Moving to Colorado in 1972, Wirshborn perused non-meteorological avenues, working for the Colorado Springs Sun and then latter moving to Fort Collins in 1975. Interest in Yellowstone National Park stimulated creation of a climatography for the National Park Service which is still provided to visitors curious about the Park's climate.
Upon arrival in Fort Collins, Wirshborn visited the Colorado States University weather station and eventually became a weather observer, part of the 125+ years of weather records for that station. In 1977 Wirshborn published a book of the CSU weather observations containing the daily high, low precipitation, snowfall data for that station for the period 1887-1975 and continues to maintain weather records for Fort Collins from records compiled by Mountain States Weather Services.
In the mid-1970s Wirshborn began engaging in providing consulting weather services to attorneys and insurance investigators and began broadcasting weather information on various radio stations around Greeley and Fort Collins. The first broadcasts were made in September, 1979 on 1310 AM KFKA, Greeley and in 1980 on 600 AM KIIX, Fort Collins. Currently Wirshborn broadcasts on 17 radio stations in Colorado, Wyoming and South Dakota with listenership in four states.
A self-taught meteorologist, Wirshborn was admitted to the American Meteorological Society (AMS) as a full member in 1982, having been a student and later an associate member since 1966. "Admittance to the AMS as a full member represents graduation day for me," Wirshborn said, "All through my growing up period I was told I couldn't have a meteorology career without a meteorology degree." "Graduation Day" for Wirshborn was using the term "meteorologist" with his name. "This met more to me than any degree I could get from college," he said.
Wirshborn is a charter member of the National Weather Association (1976) and Mountain States Weather Services is a charter corporation member.
A typical day starts around 3:30 a.m. and goes till the weather is done in the evening. "If someone has to bleed it's not the client," Wirshborn said, "weather doesn't stop at 5 p.m. or on weekends." This philosophy has brought on a head of gray hairs and a pride in doing a job that is not measured in dollars and cents.
Wirshborn married Cheryl Meyers Sept., 3, 1977. They reside in east Fort Collins, have three children and a grand child. What little spare time he has he spends reading and collecting books about the Mountain Man and the Fur Trade, throwing a line in a creek once in a while and visiting his favorite places in the world, Yellowstone, the valley of the upper Green River and the Wind River mountains of Wyoming.
Mountain States Weather Services
820 S. Summit View Drive
Fort Collins, CO 80524-3670