Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,608
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    Vesuvius
    Newest Member
    Vesuvius
    Joined

Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

Recommended Posts

In the northern Rockies: some temperatures I don't want to see here.

 

---

...RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE SET AT MISSOULA MT...KALISPELL MT...ANDBUTTE MT... A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 102 DEGREES WAS SET AT MISSOULA MTYESTERDAY SUNDAY JUNE 28. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 98 SET IN2007. A RECORD HIGH TEMPERATURE OF 102 DEGREES WAS SET AT KALISPELL MTYESTERDAY SUNDAY JUNE 28. THIS BREAKS THE OLD RECORD OF 92 SET IN2007.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Replies 352
  • Created
  • Last Reply

It was 113 F on Sunday at Walla Walla WA. And almost that hot everywhere else within 300 miles.112 F at Moses Lake, 111 at Pasco and Hanford, 110 at Omak near the Canadian border. This heat has relented just slightly today but is supposed to crank back up during the week. But it's only low to mid 60s on the coast.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

another potentially severe hailstorm is over the ridges east of Laramie WY. Yesterday (see 2nd picture) a storm was over the same place at about the same time of day, and it tracked toward Fort Collins as a non-severe storm.

 

2015_07_03_2328z_KCYS2.png

 

 

2015_07_02_2228z_KCYS.gif

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fort Collins turned out to be 3.3F above normal for June, although I believe it was only above 90 three times. The average minimum temp was 4.2F above normal, due to humidity and clouds. Fort Collins had 71% of normal precip. Denver had 128% of normal precip.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Fort Collins has had 1.1" of rain since Sunday afternoon, and I don't think the sun has been seen since then. It also has not been much above 70 since late Sunday afternoon. It's so weird. This type of weather doesn't generally happen near July 4th. Yesterday it was so white and milky in the sky with the wildfire smoke from Canada. I could even smell the wildfire smoke for a short time. I think the rain during the day yesterday washed out some of that smoke.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I got some pictures of lenticular clouds. These are rare in summer. Yesterday we had a fairly dry downslope flow with 70kt winds at 300mb. I suppose the strong upper flow created larger gravity waves, allowing the lenticulars to form.

 

post-1182-0-72011500-1436815864_thumb.jp

 

post-1182-0-63966800-1436815880_thumb.jp

 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • 2 weeks later...

It just dropped below 80 here at 9:20PM. It has been a very warm evening here. I believe this was the warmest day of the year here, 94 degrees. July 4th was also 94 degrees. We usually drop into the 70's much before 9:20pm. We had a downslope wind flow that was pretty much a dryline coming off the mountains. The dew point dropped from 60 to 40 in the daytime hours today, as temperature increased.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Must have been downsloping here too because by 11 PM the breeze died and the temp dropped to 70. Nice today, 87. Monsoon has been very meh this month, just under an inch of rain 7/1-28. Things are looking less green and more normal for late July, though the prairie sunflowers and thistles are head high or higher in many open spots. Can't even find the lesser used connecting trails in Cherry Creek SP.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

It was similar (but obviously cooler) even up here at 8,400'. Was only down to 67 by 9:30 pm which is about 7 degrees warmer than any other evening so far this summer. Woke up to 46 this morning, so we ended up near normal.

Neat storms tonight grew right around sunset in the Tarryalls. Was really clear at 7 and was thundering by 8. Actually had pretty frequent lightning for about 5 minutes when it was first forming.

Any early thoughts on winter along the front range with what seems like a strong Nino developing? I haven't been out here long, so I'm not super familiar with climo. Would seem the front range should be AN snowfall but most of the I-70 ski resorts might be BN snowfall, but that's mostly a hunch.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Any early thoughts on winter along the front range with what seems like a strong Nino developing? I haven't been out here long, so I'm not super familiar with climo. Would seem the front range should be AN snowfall but most of the I-70 ski resorts might be BN snowfall, but that's mostly a hunch.

Check the NWS website - every couple months there is a feature and they have discussed El Nino. Even more interesting and also lots more technical have been the discussions on weather5280.com. Bottom line from my read of their work is that is the early call is somewhat greater than normal chances of cool and somewhat greater than normal chances of wet, but way too many variables to say anything with certainty.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Must have been downsloping here too because by 11 PM the breeze died and the temp dropped to 70. Nice today, 87. Monsoon has been very meh this month, just under an inch of rain 7/1-28. Things are looking less green and more normal for late July, though the prairie sunflowers and thistles are head high or higher in many open spots. Can't even find the lesser used connecting trails in Cherry Creek SP.

 

Fort Collins has about 1.65" this month. That is 96% of normal.  Denver International has 1.06". That is 51% of normal. There hasn't been much rain in Fort Collins in the later part of this month. That's a bit weird, because the monsoon season pretty much happens July 15-August 15th.

 

These are month-to-date precip plots: from the HPRCC, and from the NWS gridded analysis (available on http://water.weather.gov) Some of this is a little confusing- The gridded analysis is obviously too high for DIA and Fort Collins. Also, these plots disagree!

 

 

 

MonthPNormHPRCC-CO.png

 

 

2015_07_30_month_to_date_pct_of_normal.p

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Yes, those are indeed weird. Wonder what you'd get if you layered COCORaHS data in.Those might be the best, though arguably a few would underestimate.

We're just getting the first real shower (if it lasts) in 2.5 weeks, right now. My backyard is all cracked and hard, even with watering enough to keep the plants from dying.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe this dot-plot from HPRCC will clear up some of the confusion. This plots July percent of normal precipiation as a colored dot. There was great variability. I still don't know how to explain the NWS 4-km gridded analysis problems. 

 

Also, there is a nearly circular outflow boundary moving outwards from the Denver area. Fort Collins dropped from 90 to 85 due to this.

 

Last1mPNormHPRCC-COd.png

 

 

 

 

2015_08_02_2313z_KFTG.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

The CFSv2 monthly forecast predicts that Colorado will be below normal this month. But the MEX MOS and the GFS 2-meter temperatures are predicting hot temperatures here for a long time. Perhaps so much that are area can't be below normal for the month.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Maybe this dot-plot from HPRCC will clear up some of the confusion. This plots July percent of normal precipiation as a colored dot. There was great variability. I still don't know how to explain the NWS 4-km gridded analysis problems. 

 

Also, there is a nearly circular outflow boundary moving outwards from the Denver area. Fort Collins dropped from 90 to 85 due to this.

 

Those make sense. There were a lot of heavy showers right on our western doorstep that evaporated in the past couple of weeks, and areas just to the south (S of Castle Rock) had a lot more.

 

That was a LARGE outflow boundary- 50+ mile radius! We got 0.2" of nice rain from that one with a rumble here and there. Storm was nearly stationary for almost an hour, but not real heavy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We just had a short rain shower, 0.06" at CSU. That's the first measurable rain here since 7/22. I was on vacation on 7/22 so I haven't seen rain here since 7/8 or 7/9.

 

edit: looking back at the CoCoRAHS daily maps for Fort Collins, there has been a trace to a few hundredths of an inch on several days in mid-July after 7/9.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

NWS - Rapid City has a web page about upper air climatology. This page has precipitable water climatology and the NAM forecast of PW % of normal. This could be very useful at times. The max and min 850mb temperatures of all time for each RAOB site are listed in a PDF file. That part wasn't quite so helpful though.

 

http://www.weather.gov/unr/uac

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We have 91 with a dew point of 23 here in Fort Collins. That's 8.5% RH. It's close to being red flag advisory conditions. Driest RH value of the summer. It looks like we will continue to have very little rain for a while. I believe July 15th-August 15th will turn out to be a very dry time period for this area.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

A Delta Airlines jet ran into large hailstones up inside the clouds in eastern Colorado yesterday. Emergency landing at Denver.  I've never seen anything quite like this.

 

http://www.weather.com/news/news/delta-airlines-aircraft-heavy-hail-damage-emergency-landing?cm_ven=Twitter_TheWeatherChannel_Weather_News_LLa_Article_No_5_20150808

 

 

Delta Airlines passengers had the scare of their lives Friday night when a flight from Boston to Salt Lake City encountered bad weather over eastern Colorado, with hail that caused significant damage

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Mesoscale discussion, talking about issuing a severe thunderstorm watch for the northern Front Range. Wow. If I could get more than a few drops of rain, it would be excellent.

 

 MESOSCALE DISCUSSION 1690   NWS STORM PREDICTION CENTER NORMAN OK   0108 PM CDT SUN AUG 16 2015   AREAS AFFECTED...PORTIONS OF SERN WY...NERN CO...A SMALL PART OF THE   NEB PANHANDLE   CONCERNING...SEVERE POTENTIAL...WATCH POSSIBLE    VALID 161808Z - 162045Z   PROBABILITY OF WATCH ISSUANCE...40 PERCENT   SUMMARY...THE AREA IS BEING MONITORED FOR INCREASING SVR-TSTM   POTENTIAL...AND IT IS POSSIBLE THAT A WW WOULD BE NEEDED AT SOME   POINT THIS AFTERNOON.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

The Weather Channel mentioned that Phoenix tied its all-time highest temperature for the month of August (117) on Friday Aug 14th.

 

 

At least one major heat record has been established in this heat wave. On Friday, Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport recorded a high of 117 degrees, tying the Arizona capital's all-time record high for the month of August previously set Aug. 26, 2011.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Another mesoscale discussion. Tornado watch likely here

 

   CONCERNING...SEVERE POTENTIAL...WATCH LIKELY    VALID 171959Z - 172200Z   PROBABILITY OF WATCH ISSUANCE...80 PERCENT   SUMMARY...SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED TO DEVELOP/INCREASE   INITIALLY ACROSS THE CO FRONT RANGE AND PALMER DIVIDE VICINITY OF   EAST-CENTRAL/NORTHEAST CO...WITH OTHER SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS POSSIBLE   LATER ACROSS SOUTHEAST WY.
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.

×
×
  • Create New...