It is with great sadness that we announce the passing of former state climatologist and director of the Colorado Climate Center, Nolan J. Doesken. Nolan was a great friend and mentor to many, and a pillar of our Department, University, and State.

Nolan, a native of Royal, Illinois (b. January 1952) loved weather and especially snow since his early days as a paperboy. Throughout his teenage years he had a keen knack for statistics and would keep track of the elements daily. Nolan was a graduate of the University of Michigan and later the University of Illinois where not many know that he was the top popcorn salesman at Illini football games. At 6-foot-6 he was hard to miss. An early career at the Illinois Water Survey followed. In 1976 he moved to Colorado to begin his time at CSU.

Nolan served Colorado State University and the people of Colorado for over 40 years. He was the Colorado assistant state climatologist for 30 years (1977-2006), and state climatologist for over 10 years (2006-2017). He also directed the Colorado Climate Center, our recognized state climate office, from 2006 to 2017.

After the Fort Collins flash flood in 1997, Nolan founded the Community Collaborative Rain, Hail, and Snow (CoCoRaHS) network, which has grown to over 28,000 active volunteer precipitation observers across the US, Canada, Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Guam and the Bahamas. He authored over 50 peer-reviewed journal publications, along with hundreds of other publications in public-facing outlets from the Colorado Climate Center, Colorado Water Center, NOAA, and more. One of these publications described the Standardized Precipitation Index, which Nolan co-developed. It is one of the most commonly used metrics worldwide for assessing drought severity.

Nolan was highly respected among the community of state climatologists. He was elected president of the American Association of State Climatologists (AASC) and served in that role from 2008 to 2010. He was also selected as an honorary member of the AASC, one of only three people to have received this honor.

Nolan's career contributions were recognized by several state and national organizations. He received the Dianne Hoppe Leadership Award from Water Education Colorado in 2011. He was chosen for an Honorary Lifetime Membership Award from Colorado Water Congress, which recognizes individuals whose careers in the water-related industry exemplify vision, creativity, and excellent professional performance over a long and productive career. In 2014, Nolan and the CoCoRaHS team were selected for the American Meteorological Society Special Award, for building a community of thousands of volunteer observers dedicated to providing high quality, reliable observations of daily precipitation across the United States. The CoCoRaHS team also was honored with the Distinguished Community Engagement Scholarship Award from Colorado State University in 2020.

Nolan was widely known across Colorado in professional circles related to water, weather, and climate, and by the general public. He was widely interviewed in local, national, and international media as an expert on Colorado's weather and climate. He was also the author of The Mysteries of Nature: Stories from Our Farm, a book to be published in late 2026.

Nolan had a way of making you feel as if you knew him, even if you had never met him. His zest for life was contagious. He was kind, encouraging, and in his folksy manner could come into a room and captivate the attention of the crowd immediately.

In closing, Nolan wrote the following note recently to his CoCoRaHS volunteers to be read after his passing:

Dear CoCoRaHS family,
As many of you know, I have been battling Parkinson's for the past several years, giving it my best shot, but ultimately losing the fight each day, and now the time has come to say goodbye and begin a new journey, as we all will one day. When I came up with the idea for CoCoRaHS back in 1998, I had no idea that this Citizen Science precipitation network would grow to what it is today. I have all of you, our dedicated staff, and many others to thank for making this dream a reality. I am thankful for each and every one of you (66,000+ observers and counting) who, over the years, have taken the time to take a simple measurement and contribute to this vast source of daily precipitation observations. It certainly brings a smile to my face and to many others'. I also hope that you have enjoyed sharing life on our small farm with me through the various "Farm Stories" I have written over the years. May they have brightened your day. My final wishes are that you will keep our network going strong in the years ahead, and that you will feel the wonder I have felt as you monitor our weather and climate. So, for now, I leave you with a short goodbye and look forward to meeting you again one day.

Nolan Doesken
CoCoRaHS Founder

We will greatly miss you, Nolan.

"Each year the general cycle is the same -- driven by the calendar and the position of the sun. But the details are always different -- the dry years, the early snowmelts, the wet years, the big spring surprises. And every year I have had the honor of tracking and reporting the conditions and the results - like the scorekeeper in the biggest game of the year. What could be more fun than that?" -- Nolan Doesken