Chinook

It's 96 in Texas

There are lots of watches warnings, and advisories. It is snowing, windy, or on fire. Maybe half the country is on fire. We are not sure.

A large upper level trough will develop next week and one possibility is snow and cold temperatures in northern Colorado. The current models have a quick hit for the snow, but I suppose that could change. I think the trough may move too fast. On the severe weather side of things: The models have the 60 dew points from Texas into the Midwest. The SPC has given out an unusual Day-6 severe weather outlook, as shown. I figure the Illinois folks may eventually talk about this.

Here are the temps today at 20z, with contours from 50 to 80 highlighted. It feels nice to not be 30 and cloudy. I guess I might get cancelled by some snowlovers by saying that.

anybody getting cold this winter?

That sort of area always has an icy snowpack on the trail, as people walk on it and pack it down. I don't know if that helps. There's also another reason that I didn't go to Greyrock too much in the winter: the small parking lot has a mostly shaded area where you have to drive up a few feet. The slope may be icy. So, yes, you might get some icy stuff in exactly the places where you don't want. Hewlett Gulch has a road and parking lot that should be in the sun. Also, way less mountainous terrain at the trail. Still, might have some packed ice.

Here is the precipitation percent of normal and snowfall percent of normal since the beginning of December. From the recent storms, the snowpack snow water equivalent is above normal for the Southwest and below normal for the northern Rockies.

loop of 250mb, for the first 15 days of this 29 day month https://great-lakes-salsite.web.app/Feb_1_15_2024_250mb_loop.html

There are about 10 snowflakes near Cincinnati

central Indiana, with reports from IL

Here's the NAM 850mb frontogenesis overlaid with 850mb temperature. Also surface observations from this morning

Here is the observation in the middle of the night with the heavy snow at Greeley. I would imagine some areas were getting over 1" per hour

We've got three slight risks, starting today (tonight) for Texas. Here is what may be happening at 12z(6:00AM central)

somebody woke up to 12" and that would be somebody in Greeley

The NWS has a winter weather advisory for you guys. They have the 2-5" type stuff, with not any huge snowfall at 9000ft+.

The 18z GFS is kind of splotchy with this one. It's very likely due to high lapse rates/ instability The models have all sort of zones of heavier precipitation with this. I hadn't even been looking at the models much. It looks like the surface temp could be 29.

pretty much a verified tornado now close to Evansville (tornado report at Albany at 5:37central)

This is the NWS analysis of the heavy snow recently

The dry slot developed quickly this afternoon. Here's a satellite picture with SLP when the rain/snow was getting going this afternoon for you guys

California is going to double its recent precipitation with a W Coast storm

I was going to say that rain above 5000ft at this point of the year is nuts. but I guess it's light snow at Greeley and accumulation in Denver, so that's something

my new 250mb jet stream loop to end off the month https://great-lakes-salsite.web.app/Jan_17_31_2024_250mb_loop.html

my thinking is that Ft. Collins/Loveland/Longmont averages over 50" and Boulder was like 76" other notes: up to 61 degrees in Alberta Canada today (also 60's at Lewistown/Great Falls Montana today and yesterday) SPC slight risk near San Antonio (probably not too much discussion needed unless somehow we get a tornado watch tomorrow) Obviously dew points of 50-60 in that area are unusual at this time of year.

I wonder how long you've been in Colorado? Like, I mean, normally Boulder gets plenty of enhanced snow rates, the Flatirons to the Front Range is set up nicely for that. The very strange omega-block pattern, with storminess near you guys, will set up as this Pacific jet energy will completely undercut the huge ridge. Undercutting a ridge is something that does happens during El Nino. This is just a weird one.

The models frequently have troubles with forecasting bigger storms at about 5-7 days. The problem is, you tend to think that they have a good forecast for wintertime scenarios if they have some consistency. Then like the last couple of days we saw, the consistency goes away as the models may shift important features such as precipitation. This is partly due to the fact that the models aren't perfect at any time. It's party due to the fact that the models ingest data from geostationary and other satellites. That's pretty much all you get from the Pacific, except for two upper air observations from Hawaii. And as the other guys said, you guys are definitely due some winter to spring snowstorms from El Nino. As you can see, there are no upper air observations from weather balloons off the coast. The models must gain weather information from GOES-WEST and low-orbit satellite types.