mayjawintastawm

Longer term and not necessarily Mountain specific, this caught my eye today. https://droughtmonitor.unl.edu Almost the entire lower 48 west of about 95 degrees west longitude, plus Hawaii, is in moderate drought or worse. Wow.

NWS BOU is sounding more pessimistic, driving it south. This last one was nice and wet, one more and we'll be in good shape heading into April. I sure hope 2022 is not like 2021. We (and even more, the rest of the West!) could use a break from the June-Dec dry sauna pattern.

Cool! Elevation was key. I got 5.2" of cement after about 0.25" rain, will see what the final water equivalent was but I'm thinking the ratio in the snow was about 8:1 or maybe even less.

This will be interesting! I'm guessing the mets in the area are needing extra antacids with this one. Point forecast for me says 0.98" QPF and 7.4" snow.

Nice to see a more Spring-like moisture pattern. QPF has actually been increasing as the Wed/Thu event approaches, a rare thing! That blizzard last year dumped around 24" here and also had >3" water, which helped us stay green until the 4th of July when everything flipped to what it has been since.

Technique: 1) ignore models more than 48 hours out unless they all agree; 2) cut QPF forecasted at 48 hrs pre-event in half. Easier said than done, but preserves mental health and wastes less time.

We've had 2.2" of snow, remarkably high density for the temps- really, dust fell all day long so not a lot of air in the snow. I'm guessing we're close to 0.2" WE. It was 12-14 F most of the afternoon, now down to 5. Brr. Not March.

Whatever happens, we really need a big slug of moisture. 0.6" QPF 4-5 days out turns into 0.4" at the event onset and ends up verifying as 0.2", every single time.

My best guess is we got 3.5" over the entire Fri-Sun period. That big band last night that dropped 2 + inches 5 miles in any direction gave us less than an inch for some reason- I was driving around in it then got home and it was gone. The COCORAHS site near me got 1.0" Fri till 7 AM this morning.

so- was it cold enough for ya? How was the snow?

Actually, we're not doing too bad though the last couple weeks has been really dry. So far in Feb we have 17.7" for a season total of 34.4", with March and April yet to go. Conservatively, I'm guessing we'll wind up with about 45", less than normal of 55-60", probably 3rd or 4th lowest of our 12 winters here.

yeah- we got as low as -6, were below zero 3 mornings, and totaled a whopping 2.7" of snow. Today it finally got up to 31.

Agree- actually, my perfect winter would have around 100 inches of snow total, temps reliably in the 20s-30s most days 12/1-2/28 (of course, some 60 and some 0) to make for good ice on the lakes, and sunny more often than not. But the last couple days here have been brutal, with highs not above 10 and lows in the single numbers below zero with minimal sun. Late Feb is not typically the heart of winter either.... this on MLK weekend would be easier to take. Having a new puppy at home who is not yet housebroken does not help. Volunteers for 2AM potty breaks welcome.

I think I have not encountered this prolonged cold, cloudy, light snow type of thing in my 11 years in Colorado. It's been below 10 F for almost 48 hours and we've had 1.4" of styrofoam snow with vanishingly small water equivalent. Even the dogs don't want to spend more than a few minutes outside. Good for ice reinforcement on the lake but not much else.

We'll see. Models are pretty consistent with about 0.6" QPF for the metro area... of course that's worth about a nickel this far out, maybe.

4.2" at 10:20 PM, much fluffier than the weekend's snow, probably half to 2/3 of the water content.

and... crickets. Meh. What if they gave a watch and nobody came?

Winter Storm Watch for Wed afternoon/night just issued for the northern and central Front Range urban corridor. Seems a bit borderline- ? wonder if something changed.

OK, I have no good explanation then. You're probably somewhere around 6400 ft elevation, which should help upslope. Then again, most places east of E-470 have been really, really dry this winter. The little storm yesterday yielded 0.42" WE at our place, the wettest day since late June of last year.

Smokey, where in Parker are you? You must be threading the needle between the bands that have been over metro Denver and the higher elevation upslope on the south side of town.

5.3" here at 11 PM, still with maybe 1/2-1 hour to go but I'm not staying up. Will measure once more in the AM. EDIT: 5.5" final at 8 AM 2/12.

Dumping here, just getting into a band. Started at 2 PM, 2" so far and this is close to an inch an hour.

Ayuh. Gonna look like a lawbsta' if ya nawt careful!

Really, as a transplanted New Englander, even this year's "marginal" season is not bad at all by the standards we grew up with. Most areas (just checked Big Sky too) are 3/4 open, and melt out is not nearly as early or as dramatic as Eastern resorts due to higher elevations and dry air. All you need are 3-4 inches of powder on a decent base to have fun, and no reason that can't happen between now and next week. Enjjoy, and use LOTS of sunscreen!

And cold at our house this morning! -11 for a low right at 7 AM. Coldest in 3-4 years anyway, maybe longer.