A permanent mountain-top facility, Storm Peak Laboratory (SPL), was constructed during the summer of 1995 in the Rocky Mountains of northwestern Colorado (3200 m M.S.L.; 40.455 deg N, -106.744 deg W).

Although SPL has been in existence in various forms for more than nineteen years, the new facility is the latest stage of an evolutionary process of providing a practical, easily accessible facility for researchers, teachers and students of all ages and abilities. A clear upwind fetch places the lab in an ideal location from which to conduct studies of the free troposphere.