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Rocky Mountain Discussion


tacoman25

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:o ...especially considering it's Feb. 2!!!

This morning, the low temp hit 1F (34 degrees below normal)...this absolutely destorys the previous Feb. 3 record low of 16F, set in 1982. Just incredible...

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE EL PASO TX/SANTA TERESA NM

250 AM MST THU FEB 3 2011

.SYNOPSIS...

RECORD BREAKING COLD TEMPERATURES WILL CONTINUE TODAY AND TONIGHT

ACROSS THE REGION. EL PASO SET NEW RECORD LOWS BOTH YESTERDAY AND

THIS MORNING. YESTERDAY`S HIGH TEMPERATURE IN EL PASO WAS THE

COLDEST HIGH FOR ANY DAY EVER IN OVER 120 YEARS OF RECORD KEEPING.

THE HIGH WAS ONLY 17 DEGREES. THE REGION WILL STAY WELL BELOW

FREEZING AGAIN TODAY AND ALMOST 40 DEGREES BELOW NORMAL. HOWEVER

THE THREAT FOR MORE SNOW IS OVER AND SKIES WILL BEGIN TO CLEAR

ACROSS THE REGION AS THE UPPER STORM DEPARTS. TONIGHT WILL BE

DANGEROUSLY COLD AGAIN.

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So in the 11 months I've lived in Santa Fe we've managed to hit the all time high of 100 degrees and the all time low of -18 last Thursday. Crazy weather.

Calling for another 8 inches of snow here tomorrow. The cold last week pretty much killed the entire state and shut it down completely so I'm hoping we handle this next storm better.

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Not to look a gift snowfall in the mouth, and it does look pretty, like real winter (finally!), but here's a question: Do we ever get real live synoptic snow here, related to a low pressure area as opposed to little post-frontal upslope events and upper-level troughs and mesoscale tidbits? I know the answer is yes, it just seems like there hasn't been a single nice wound-up storm since I moved here last summer. Yawn. Maybe Spring will bring one. Maybe I need to go chase tornadoes. :rolleyes:

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Not to look a gift snowfall in the mouth, and it does look pretty, like real winter (finally!), but here's a question: Do we ever get real live synoptic snow here, related to a low pressure area as opposed to little post-frontal upslope events and upper-level troughs and mesoscale tidbits? I know the answer is yes, it just seems like there hasn't been a single nice wound-up storm since I moved here last summer. Yawn. Maybe Spring will bring one. Maybe I need to go chase tornadoes. :rolleyes:

Define low pressure. Do you mean when surface low/850 low stalls in southeast Colorado? That sounds reasonable. Forecasters look for 700mb winds out of the east or northeast for a "good" snow event. The 12z GFS is predicting 10 knot northerly, then 10 knot NE , then 5 knot NE, then 5 knot northerly at 700mb. That is OK but it's too much northerly components for getting over 8" at our elevation. If the 700mb winds are westerly, we get really light snow or none at all. It's best if the 700mb winds continue easterly for a while, and the band of precipitation doesn't shift down to Colorado Springs too fast. Sometimes these fronts make the band of precipitation shift southward quickly.

My web site about Front Range snowstorms

http://fortcollins.s...sSnowstorms.htm

look at these examples of moderate storms

12/27/2007

http://www.spc.noaa....0_071227_12.gif

3/27/2009

http://www.spc.noaa....0_090327_00.gif

11/15/2009

http://www.spc.noaa....0_091115_00.gif

12/06/2009

http://www.spc.noaa....0_091206_12.gif

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Those wind gusts are a little more impressive. Fort Collins had a max gust 34.9mph outside the city limits,. Fort Collins- Loveland airport : North 23 knots gusting to 38 knots, so that is about the same at NCAR Foothills. NCAR Foothills is in a residential/commercial area, so typically winds wouldn't be 37-38mph, that's very high for a residential area.

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Those wind gusts are a little more impressive. Fort Collins had a max gust 34.9mph outside the city limits,. Fort Collins- Loveland airport : North 23 knots gusting to 38 knots, so that is about the same at NCAR Foothills. NCAR Foothills is in a residential/commercial area, so typically winds wouldn't be 37-38mph, that's very high for a residential area.

Here is the MESA site location--even more impressive winds.

http://www.eol.ucar.edu/cgi-bin/weather.cgi?site=ml&period=5-minute&fields=tdry&fields=rh&fields=cpres0&fields=wspd&fields=wdir&fields=raina&units=english

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Not to look a gift snowfall in the mouth, and it does look pretty, like real winter (finally!), but here's a question: Do we ever get real live synoptic snow here, related to a low pressure area as opposed to little post-frontal upslope events and upper-level troughs and mesoscale tidbits? I know the answer is yes, it just seems like there hasn't been a single nice wound-up storm since I moved here last summer. Yawn. Maybe Spring will bring one. Maybe I need to go chase tornadoes. :rolleyes:

There have been a bunch of large winter storms just like you described since I moved here in 2006: Dec 2006 (2), Jan 2007, March 2009, Oct 2009, Mar 2010. These are just the bigger ones, as all of these storms brought 10"+. The biggest were Dec 2006 (27"), Mar 2009 (16"), and Oct 2009 (20").

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Define low pressure. Do you mean when surface low/850 low stalls in southeast Colorado? That sounds reasonable.

Very cool. Thanks. I guess I'm used to systems having some sort of body of water or other big energy source to feed off. It seems also like we've had a northwest upper level flow roughly forever, precluding much of a low from forming, or if there is one, it trucks out of town pretty fast.

- MWS

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Anywhere to go for some Wasatch discos? I am heading to Parl City the week of the 22nd and I am looking for some quality info for snow chances during that period. Any guidance as to where in these forums to look? Many thanks!

www.utahskiweather.com is a good resource, run by grad students at the University of Utah.

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