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Rocky Mountain Discussion


Chinook

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Now that it is summer, I want to start out a new discussion for us.

Fort Collins got 4.5" of rain in May, and it was 4.3 degrees below average.

Denver got 4.79" in May and it was 4.1 degrees below average.

Thank God it actually rained. It was a drought winter east of the mountains, but not in the high mountains. Now everything is green, our reservoirs are full, and there is still lots of snow in the mountains. The NWS gave us a flood advisory for minor river flooding.

On Wednesday night and Thursday night, I think our area could have 40 knots of deep layer shear and a chance for thunderstorms. This could mean hail and tornadoes east of Denver. I'm not sure if everything will play out just right.

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Tomorrow there is going to be some instability (maybe more than today) with a good shortwave trough moving through. I think a few front range thunderstorms developing off the high mountains and moving east 20 - 30 mph. Models don't have very high QPF on this, but I think some storms will happen because of the 500mb trough/weak upslope. Chances of severe depends on if we hit CAPE of 1000 J/kg (foothills) 1500 J/kg (plains)

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Tomorrow there is going to be some instability (maybe more than today) with a good shortwave trough moving through. I think a few front range thunderstorms developing off the high mountains and moving east 20 - 30 mph. Models don't have very high QPF on this, but I think some storms will happen because of the 500mb trough/weak upslope. Chances of severe depends on if we hit CAPE of 1000 J/kg (foothills) 1500 J/kg (plains)

Oh they will happen. The low QPF is to be expected given the very high based parcels developing off the peaks and the isolated supercell structures.

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I like tomorrow's chances as well. I think the higher low level moisture/DPs that moved in this afternoon/evening will help things destabilize quicker tomorrow. As long as we can get up to about 75 or so by 1 pm, should be a go for a nice round of afternoon action.

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I can see distant lightning now. Severe storm for Loveland/Windsor, 68 dBz. Nice.

I was in Boulder last night and saw the lightning as well.

Well, the low level moisture certainly deepened overnight. Woke up to fog and drizzle...DPs near 50 with temps just above. If we can get some clearing over the next few hours, the stage should be set for this afternoon/evening. Pretty socked in right now, though.

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I was in Boulder last night and saw the lightning as well.

Well, the low level moisture certainly deepened overnight. Woke up to fog and drizzle...DPs near 50 with temps just above. If we can get some clearing over the next few hours, the stage should be set for this afternoon/evening. Pretty socked in right now, though.

So much for this. Still mostly cloudy and only 62 degrees.

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So much for this. Still mostly cloudy and only 62 degrees.

Finally clearing up. Gonna need major warming over the next couple hours to spark anything. Good thing is that DP are still relatively high with easterly flow (near 50), but temp only 64 currently. Probably need at least 10 more degrees before anything gets cranking.

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You aren't getting any help upstream, that's for sure. Still misty and only 52 in Boulder. A nice cool day! And I'm not upset about that looking at what I could be experiencing if I were still in SE Pennsylvania.

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You aren't getting any help upstream, that's for sure. Still misty and only 52 in Boulder. A nice cool day! And I'm not upset about that looking at what I could be experiencing if I were still in SE Pennsylvania.

52 still in Boulder? Geez.

Yeah, I'm afraid today is a lost cause. Still some good potential this weekend, though.

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Looking much better for convection today and especially tomorrow.

Today there is good SE low level flow along with abundant sunshine to rapidly warm us up and erode the cap. I think we'll see some nice boomers this afternoon over the metro area. Tomorrow looks like it has the chance to be much wetter, with widespread convection due to a shortwave moving through just to the south. Also some severe potential out on the plains tomorrow afternoon.

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Nice cell popped up over central/south Denver around 8-8:30. I tried to rush up to NCAR to get some panorama's of the anvil, but by the time I got there the sunlight was gone and so was the view.

Hey! I was up there (I'm here for a week :D) during its peak - it was beautiful! Stupid me didn't have my actual camera, but I got some mobile shots. It was stunning over that landscape.

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Hey! I was up there (I'm here for a week :D) during its peak - it was beautiful! Stupid me didn't have my actual camera, but I got some mobile shots. It was stunning over that landscape.

LokoAko-- I haven't talked to you for years. I used to be "Pinwheeler" back on Eastern.

Nice pics.

I saw a nice fat thunderstorm tower and anvil in the distance yesterday. It was probably in Morgan County or possibly out by Kimball/Sidney. I didn't have any storms too close.

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Nice cell popped up over central/south Denver around 8-8:30. I tried to rush up to NCAR to get some panorama's of the anvil, but by the time I got there the sunlight was gone and so was the view.

I was on a bike in Cherry Creek State Park trying to get home before the storm, watched the whole thing form, and experienced a headwind on the way out from my house (SE around 15 mph) then back again (N-NE around 20 mph) as the wind shifted to provide inflow to the storm! Not often you get a headwind both ways on a bike :arrowhead:

Looking at radar it looked like a small backdoor front (?outflow from Plains storms) combined with the flow from off the foothills, and up things went.

No rain at our house... this AM it seemed like the gradient from nothing to heavy rain/hail was about a foot and a half wide.

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Good to have you here! Can always use more posters....hopefully we have something interesting to talk about soon.

Oh Absolutely! I can at least post observations and pics. tongue.gif

BTW, a hot dry wind out there. Wind has picked up considerably within the last hour. Haven't looked at the radar, but it's overcast here.....looks like it may want to rain. I did see a couple flashes of lightning a lil while ago, but not sure if anything is producing rain.

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