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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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We had 8 inches of snow on the ground this morning. Several trees down and tons of large limbs all over the place. I saw several cars that were damaged. It was really wet snow too, we had 1.46 in liquid fall. Thats huge for here too, about 1/13 of our average annual precip. Could get some more tonight too.

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We had a good inch at least of graupel last night around 6 PM, with 15-20 minutes of thunder and lightning- looked like my car was covered with Dippin' Dots but they didn't taste like much- then another inch and a half of fluff till around 11 PM. Most of it stayed around today with a high of 31. Brr. So much for cutting the lawn that last time... have to wait till next weekend unless I want to cut it by flashlight.

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Some of the benches got 2 1/2 feet. A guy I know's wife was posting about it on FB, he tricked her into moving into one of the snowiest parts of the metro area. Lets just say, she hates snow wink.png

If I stick around here I plan to move to the snowiest part of the metro, luckily that is also the nicest part as a whole. Hopefully my future wife will be able to tolerate snow.. lol

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There is a general split among the GFS ensembles for the period 5-8 days out. Some are going cold and snowy, others cool and rainy. I really don't know which will be right but generally things have trended better the last 1-2 days so hopefully the cold solutions verify.

Looks like the boring solution. At least we should get some showers.

The inversion really became noticable today with very hazy skies. Most of the snow is gone now but several inches remain in shady areas. That too should disappear in another two days I think.

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I can't believe I'm saying this, but it looks like the Front Range will be free from the really cold stuff for almost the entire month of November.

We certainly had some fun about a week ago, and some patches of snow remain, but at this point the general picture is the same. The 00z GFS is just plain awful, absolutely nothing to look forward too. Just mild and quiet conditions.

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I was looking at the 12z GFS. By golly, I think we found some arctic air at day 8. It starts getting pushed in here in Colorado on day 7. This run of the GFS has a lot of snow for Wyoming at day 7-8. (November 26-27). Meanwhile, today's 0z ECMWF has some -24C air in Montana on day 8. Wow. That ECMWF run would mean some big snow for us on day 8-9.

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I was looking at the 12z GFS. By golly, I think we found some arctic air at day 8. It starts getting pushed in here in Colorado on day 7. This run of the GFS has a lot of snow for Wyoming at day 7-8. (November 26-27). Meanwhile, today's 0z ECMWF has some -24C air in Montana on day 8. Wow. That ECMWF run would mean some big snow for us on day 8-9.

Fingers crossed while doing the snow dance! Snowman.gif

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Bummer. Yesterday's models gave hope just so today's could take it away. Looks like we'll be into December with no significant snows in the mountains. Very disappointing from a skiing perspective, but also a bad start from a water supply for next summer perspective.

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I continue to think that the pattern probably won't turn real favorable for cold/snow in our region until late December at the earliest. Mid January to early February looks like the best time period for significant winter weather based on the signals I've been following. Patience Blizzard...I definitely think you'll be rewarded down the road. mapsnow.gif

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This is a bad start to the snow year. Fort Collins only had a couple of inches of snow in November. By my estimation, Fort Collins has about 5.5" so far in Oct. and Nov. The mountains have had only a few inches too. I assume the Colorado mountains are at 30% of normal snowpack. I forecast the drought to continue through the winter, so our Front Range region will not get out of the D1 drought condition. That is, our area will not improve to D0 or "no drought" by the end of winter. Most of Colorado is D2 to D3 anyway, and this may not even improve to D1.

I was hoping for a strong El Nino to load up the Great Plains with greater than normal rain, and Colorado with greater than normal snow. It isn't going to be a strong El Nino condition. I don't believe the Plains drought will be highly changed. D0 or "no drought" by April 1st would be remarkable progress for most of the Great Plains, but I don't think this will happen. Things should stay D2 to D4. Perhaps some regional improvements will happen up north in the Dakotas.

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I've been gathering NM SNOTEL data for the Santa Fe area for a project and the current year can really be compared to 2006 in terms of deficit in the recorded ears of the sites I've gathered.

2006 was absolutely abysmal in terms of snowfall here. Its even more depressing when you look at two weeks worth of model output and don't see a damn thing to be happy about. There has never been a year in the recorded data that has started off this bad and come out anywhere near normal. At this point I believe we're going to be locked in for one of the worst snowpacks in Santa Fe history.

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This is a bad start to the snow year. Fort Collins only had a couple of inches of snow in November. By my estimation, Fort Collins has about 5.5" so far in Oct. and Nov. The mountains have had only a few inches too. I assume the Colorado mountains are at 30% of normal snowpack. I forecast the drought to continue through the winter, so our Front Range region will not get out of the D1 drought condition. That is, our area will not improve to D0 or "no drought" by the end of winter. Most of Colorado is D2 to D3 anyway, and this may not even improve to D1.

I was hoping for a strong El Nino to load up the Great Plains with greater than normal rain, and Colorado with greater than normal snow. It isn't going to be a strong El Nino condition. I don't believe the Plains drought will be highly changed. D0 or "no drought" by April 1st would be remarkable progress for most of the Great Plains, but I don't think this will happen. Things should stay D2 to D4. Perhaps some regional improvements will happen up north in the Dakotas.

You can get snow water content anomalies in real-time here:

http://www.wrcc.dri.edu/snotelanom/basinswe.html

Currently the 4 reporting stations in CO are in the 25-50% range, so your assumption was pretty good! Bad news for ski resorts and improving drought conditions alike.

post-378-0-68870500-1354126370_thumb.gif

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Finally some snow forecasted here in the Wasatch. 4-8 from the first s/w and 5-10 from the 2nd.

My guess is these estimates are a bit conservative. I'm new to the western U.S., do mountain forecasts often run a bit conservative? I know in VT the forecasts for the most favored areas would often run a bit conservative.

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