Cameras are located at airports. There are currently seven cameras distributed between Alamosa and Fort Collins, Colorado. The home page shows a current thumbnail view from each camera. Clicking on a thumbnail loads a page with a Flash viewer and detailed weather information. This is where it gets cool.

The Airport View website has some great weather cameras in the Colorado Rockies. The site is aimed at pilots and includes weather information in addition to the images. What is really cool about the site is the collection of images.

Each camera collects a new image every minute. Then the images are put together into time-lapse sequences. You can select one, two or four-hour sequences. Pick a sequence and then watch the weather change in high-speed. In addition to the time-lapse sequences, you can view the current image in high-resolution at 1280x960 pixels.

Because the Fort Collins-Loveland airport is so close to the mountains, you can see some really unusual cloud formations when the wind is blowing from the north. The west and northwest cameras give the best views. Stationary clouds form over the mountains as the wind is pushed up. These clouds change shape and size, but remain in the same place over the mountain that disturbs the air flow.

Sometimes, these clouds get curly edges in a formation that is known as cirrus Kelvin-Helmholtz. The Airport View logo contains one of these clouds. The original image is above.

The same mountains produce lenticular clouds with a west wind. In this case, the mountains produce waves that persist out onto the plains. The peak of each wave forms a lens shaped cloud. Because the waves repeat, sometimes for hundreds of miles downwind, a series of clouds is formed with a regular spacing.

• Airport View - Wx Cameras