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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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I hiked up to 11400 ft today, in Larimer County. I was cold for a while-- 45 to 50 with some 20mph wind gusts. It was a great day to be out there.

I was sailing up on Lake Dillon Saturday. It was sunny and in the 60s, but it sure felt cold with the winds gusting above 30kts! It's amazing how low the water is. There are lots of islands that typically aren't there and the gangway to the docks was practically vertical!

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I don't know. Doesn't look like they are tracking precip there anymore.

There probably isn't much difference in precip from May-Sep between Stapleton and DIA, since most the storms are convective by nature, hit or miss, and ones further east are often just as heavy as those closer to I-25.

However, from October-April, when most of the precip comes from upslope storms, the further west you go, the more precip you get. Which is why Boulder has historically averaged about 20" more snow than Denver. And places out of the plains east and north average about 20" less than Denver.

The snowfall difference between the current DEN and Stapleton would probably be around 5-10"/year, I would guess.

Yeah, I would agree... the July storms were much heavier for the areas closer to the city, and the ones last week were heavier for DIA by a factor of about 2. May-Sep, they probably all even out.

Nice to see spits of snow above 10,000' yesterday. There is a little that has accumulated on the north-facing peaks over 12,000' last week that has stuck around!

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The 12z GFS shows around 0.10" for Fort Collins and 0.25" for Cheyenne, with almost none in the high mountains. I think this will be mainly light snow on Friday night and Saturday. The Denver NWS discussion seems to say this will not really bring accumulation to low elevations. Looks like the lift is generally from low-level upslope, plus a weak shortwave in Wyoming at the time. We will have 700mb around -5C. This is cold enough for snow, and our surface temperatures will be 30-45 on Saturday. This will be quite a shocker.

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The 12z GFS shows around 0.10" for Fort Collins and 0.25" for Cheyenne, with almost none in the high mountains. I think this will be mainly light snow on Friday night and Saturday. The Denver NWS discussion seems to say this will not really bring accumulation to low elevations. Looks like the lift is generally from low-level upslope, plus a weak shortwave in Wyoming at the time. We will have 700mb around -5C. This is cold enough for snow, and our surface temperatures will be 30-45 on Saturday. This will be quite a shocker.

The NAM has considerably more precip than the GFS, fwiw.

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Temps plummeting by the minute! Wind has come south into the Denver area. It's also visible on radar.

Wundermap really shows the story - upper 70's and calm in the Springs, and 50's for Fort Morgan with wind gusts over 40mph.

Dropped 20 degrees in one hour here. Already down to 44 now after a high of 82 today.

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Looks like the NAM is giving Fort Collins about 0.2" of precipitation. This could be 1 to 2 inches of snow on grass surfaces. The GFS has a fair agreement with the precip amounts. NWS CYS has a winter storm watch for part of their area. Looks like the GFS has a small 700mb low near Cheyenne/Laramie at 06z Saturday. This is not a long lasting 700mb low, but it should provide most of the 850-700mb upslope layer for this snow event (as 850mb is upslope the whole time.) The models also have the 500mb vort max moving through central Wyoming and NE Colorado.

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Looks like the NAM is giving Fort Collins about 0.2" of precipitation. This could be 1 to 2 inches of snow on grass surfaces. The GFS has a fair agreement with the precip amounts. NWS CYS has a winter storm watch for part of their area. Looks like the GFS has a small 700mb low near Cheyenne/Laramie at 06z Saturday. This is not a long lasting 700mb low, but it should provide most of the 850-700mb upslope layer for this snow event (as 850mb is upslope the whole time.) The models also have the 500mb vort max moving through central Wyoming and NE Colorado.

Yeah, it's starting to look more favorable for your area than down here. I'll be surprised if I see more than half an inch of accumulation.

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