The National weather station at Broomfield, a few miles east of Boulder, has hourly weather data archived for the 25th. and 26th. of December, 1996. I coughed up the few dollars for an online copy of the readings between noon on the 25th. and noon the 26th., just because I want to have the last word here.

At midnight the temp was 45. The station reported less than a hundreth of an inch of precipitation. The temp dropped below freezing sometime around 00:30am as it was 30 degrees at 1:00 am. That is when the "dusting" of snow occured. That is also the time I estimated previously, so I'm patting myself on the back as I type one handed.

The temp dropped sharply to 18 degrees an hour later, then to 14 degrees by 3:45 am and 10 degrees at 4:45 am. The next reading was at noon and it was 7 degrees.

I gather from this it might have been around 10 degrees in Boulder around 5:00 am to 6:00 am, but the interesting thing about this is that it kept getting colder until the afternoon-whatever snow was on the ground at day break, 7:20 am, was still there at noon when it was only 7 degrees (6 degrees measured in Boulder at lowest temperature).
So all you folks complaining about the snow being melted by early morning and the crime scene photos being bogus because of it need to drop back 15 yards and punt.

Interestingly, at no time did the temperature get close to the dewpoint/frost point, and you know what that means!

So if there was an intruder, he either left before 12:30 am, or he left by way of the walks that were clear on the patio/window well side. My belief is that it was in and out in 30 minutes before 12:30 am.

http://www.webbsleuths.org/dcforum/DCForumID61/1411.html#36

http://www.webbsleuths.com/cgi-bin/dcf/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=29&forum=DCForumID101

For those of us interested in what happened with the snow, and the weather in general, and how it may have affected the events of December 26th. I am posting the following weather data. I can't find my original notes and links so I have been looking for other web sites which have the essential information. FYI also, there are forensic meteorologists who research this aspect of various crimes and provide their reports to the lawyers. I heard of Lincoln using this type of research to win a case but I didn't know there were professionals who did this for a living.

Boulder, Colorado times of sunrise and sunset every December

Sunrise Sunset Length-of-Day
1 7:02 4:36 9:34
2 7:03 4:36 9:33
3 7:04 4:36 9:32
4 7:05 4:36 9:31
5 7:06 4:35 9:29
6 7:06 4:35 9:29
7 7:07 4:35 9:28
8 7:08 4:35 9:27
9 7:09 4:35 9:26
10 7:10 4:35 9:25
11 7:11 4:36 9:25
12 7:12 4:36 9:24
13 7:12 4:36 9:24
14 7:13 4:36 9:23
15 7:14 4:36 9:22
16 7:14 4:37 9:23
17 7:15 4:37 9:22
18 7:16 4:37 9:21
19 7:16 4:38 9:22
20 7:17 4:38 9:21
21 7:17 4:39 9:22
22 7:18 4:39 9:21
23 7:18 4:40 9:22
24 7:19 4:40 9:21
25 7:19 4:41 9:22
***26 7:20 4:41 9:21***
27 7:20 4:42 9:22
28 7:20 4:43 9:23
29 7:21 4:44 9:23
30 7:21 4:44 9:23
31 7:21 4:45 9:24

The sun rose at 7:20am in the East which would have been on the front entry side of the house, where the window (in which the abandoned flue was positioned) to the furnace room was.

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Boulder/boulder.sunset.html#December

Daily Precipitation and snowfall record for Dec 1996 Boulder, Colorado

Day high T low T Precip Snow Snow Depth
1 51 14 0 0 2
2 46 27 0 0 1
3 47 14 0 0 1
4 41 21 0 0 1
5 47 24 0.02 0 T
6 44 30 0 0 T
7 45 27 0 0 T
8 68 38 0 0 0
9 67 37 0 0 0
10 63 43 0 0 0
11 56 35 0 0 0
12 58 36 0 0 0
13 54 31 0 0 0
14 51 29 0 0 0
15 40 13 0 0 0

***16 40 14 0.23 3.8 4***
***17 18 -4 0.11 2.1 6***
18 18 -6 0 0 4
19 31 -4 0 0 4
20 49 22 0 0 3

21 47 36 0 0 2
22 52 20 0 0 1
***23 38 17 0.01 0.2 1***
24 44 24 0 0 T
25 54 24 0 0 T

***26 51 6 0 T 0***
27 59 26 0 0 0
28 54 37 0 0 0
29 64 34 0 0 0
30 60 42 0 0 0
31 65 32 0 0 0

The snow that covered the yard, as seen in the photos taken early on the morning of the 26th., fell on the 16th. & 17th.- a total of 5.9 inches.

Then followed 6 days of above freezing daytime temperatures where the snow melted (down to an average depth of 1" on the 23rd. after a very light 0.2 inches fell.

By the 25th. only a trace of snow, on the average for the weather station for Boulder, was left on the ground.

Then on the 26th. a trace of snow fell with no significant accumulations, the "dusting". The remainder of the snow, just a "trace" melted on the 26th. Not much rain fell during the month, none in the two days prior to the 26th. It was a very light amount and I feel sure the ground was dry on the night of the 25th. & 26th.and probably hard.

http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Boulder/boulder.data.1990-99.html#Dec96

NOAA-CIRES Climate Diagnostics Center
Document maintained by Cathy Smith (cas@cdc.noaa.gov)
Updated: Jun 28, 2001 11:39:47 MDT
http://www.cdc.noaa.gov/Boulder/getdata.html

Every day from 1948 to the present for Boulder:
ftp://ftp.cdc.noaa.gov/Public/cas/boulder.daily.data

A foot print in the snow!
Aw, just kidden,

I found the old thread where DocG tried to bamfoosal us into thinking frost and snow were everywhere around the house and Lou Smit was playing fast and loose with the crime scene photos to trick us, and where I cleverly disassembled his theory with facts.

http://www.webbsleuths.com/cgi-bin/dcf/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=29&forum=DCForumID101

and also:

http://www.webbsleuths.com/cgi-bin/dcf/dcboard.cgi?az=read_count&om=112&forum=DCForumID101#10

In summary, the time of the "dusting of snow" can be significantly approximated by using readily available National weather data for Boulder and a knowledge of psychrometrics, or the way the properties of air and water vapor function at various temperatures. In this manner I determined that the snow occured at 12:30 am, give or take 15-30 minutes, at which time the falling temperatures would cause the moisture in the air to precipitate. Even though the sgt. stated he saw frost on the ground, the weather situation most probably precluded this from happening, and I state why. What he saw must have been the "dusting" of snow which would have formed in the atmosphere and been driven by wind currents and blocked by trees, as opposed to frost which would have formed on the ground, even under the trees. I see this as consistent with the way Sgt.R describes what he saw: clear walkways and old snow (in the front of the house). I have no problem with his statement that no prints were seen in the snow, or "frost". The fact is, there could not have been any frost or snow on the sides of the house, and this is also consistent with the crime scene photos which we have seen.

Sgt. R's report proves nothing, pro or con, about an intruder or an "insider" job. All we can say is that if there were an intruder he/she/it didn't walk across the old snow, coming or going, IF the Sgt. didn't miss any prints. And since Fernie ran around the back and side of the house to the front porch, where there was some old snow, and R didn't see any prints there, he may have inadvertently missed something.

The photo of the side of the house shows that anyone could have walked up to the house from the alley, to the garage door or the rear door and window well without leaving any prints, much less in snow. The best one could say for this comment is that an intruder could not have crossed the front lawn.

Now if you were an intruder wanting to enter this house which direction would you approach from? The front yard or the alley?
Fact is, a print was found outside. It just wasn't in the snow and it wasn't from the Ramseys.

And if this weren't enough to debunk this nonsense, the weather data for Boulder is complete enough to show that the "dusting" of snow occured after midnight, and perhaps after 12:30 am, leaving plenty of time for an outsider to do what he did and leave before the dusting of snow or frost.

This is pretty flimsy reasoning, especially for a forensic scientist. Lee couldn't make it on CSI. He wouldn't last one episode.

AWS ID WBAN ID Latitude 39.917 Longitude -5.117 Elevation 1724 meters
724699 99999 BROOMFIELD/JEFFCO COLORADO US

Yr/Mon/Day/Hr/Min TEMP Dew-Frost
Mountain Std. Time Deg F Deg F

12/24/96 5:48 PM 37 14
6:47 PM 39 14
7:45 PM 39 12
9:00 PM 41 14
9:45 PM 41 14
12/25/96 5:50 AM 32 14
6:45 AM 32 14
7:45 AM 32 14
8:45 AM 46 18
9:45 AM 48 18
10:47 AM 52 18
11:46 AM 54 18
12:47 PM 55 18
1:48 PM 55 18
2:45 PM 52 19
4:45 PM 45 18
6:00 PM 30 14
7:00 PM 18 9
7:45 PM 16 7
8:45 PM 14 7
9:45 PM 10 5
12/26/96 5:50 AM 7 3
6:50 AM 7 3
7:48 AM 9 5
8:45 AM 12 9
9:46 AM 16 9
11:45 AM 28 16
12:10 PM 27 14
12:46 PM 30 14
__________________________________________________
1:53 PM 39 18
3:00 PM 50 21
3:47 PM 41 19
4:51 PM 46 21

The low temperature for the 26th. is just before dawn, where we would normally expect it. The temperature still did not rise above freezing until about 1:00 pm TO 1:15 pm. So any snow on the ground would stay there until mid to late afternoon.

Also there would be no frost formation until the dry bulb temperature matched the frost point temperature, which this shows it did not.

The report also showed less than 1/100th.inch of precipitation (which includes snow) for the night, and no accumulation. This was the dusting, or trace, of snow that the Boulder station reported. The Boulder station reported a low temp of 6 degrees, which undoubtedly occurred at the same time Broomfield was measuring 7.

My comments above were based on a misreading of the time zone. That has been corrected in this data and remarks. The actual report contains data on wind speed and direction, type of sky, clouds, barometric pressure, and more. I couldn't figure out how to make all that work in this format so I just show the temperatures. maybe later.