Colorado State University hurricane researchers forecast incoming storms, possible flood threat to Grand Junction

It may come as a surprise, but Colorado State University is home to some of the nation's leading tropical storm researchers, with scientists in Northern Colorado monitoring hurricanes and other storm systems thousands of miles away. The university's Cooperative Institute for Research in the Atmosphere, known as CIRA, operates from CSU's Foothills Campus on the western edge of Fort Collins. Despite the landlocked location, researchers there track tropical storms across the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. "I think it catches people by surprise fairly frequently," said Kate Musgrave, a research scientist with CIRA. One of the storms Musgrave is monitoring is Hurricane Isaias, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season at the time of this report. The storm was expected to make landfall with potentially destructive winds. "It is expected to be at or close to a major hurricane at landfall," Musgrave said. "So this will be a wind event.

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