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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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Yup... I've been watching the mid atlantic forum with great interest.  I'm born and raised in Baltimore and have seen some pretty monster storms there.  Baltimore always does great in these Miller A situations.

Blizzard of '78 in SNE is where I cut my weather teeth at age 12. Love these things. Though the 00Z model QPFs take computer forecasting beyond credibility. Don't believe it quite, stuff like that just never happened before.

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The NYC forum has been quite interesting today. I don't normally read much of the East Coast subforums. But today, it is really a quandary between high-snow model predictions, and low-snow ones.

 

The storm on the GFS keeps showing up on the 31st or 1st for the Front Range. The Lakes/Ohio Valley forum is now calling this the Groundhog's Day III, even though it is in the fantasy range. Seems reasonable. We'll have to see if the ECMWF will have anything to say about this on its 216hr or 240hr predictions soon.

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I love living here, but I doubt I would have become a weather nerd if I hadn't grown up in Philly and lived through 1996 and the early 2000s. The big east coast storms are just more exciting than what happens here, even if the totals for the season don't compare.

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I doubt I would have become a weather nerd if I didn't grow up going camping in the rain and thunderstorms in Ohio. I was always rooting for the ice storms to cancel school.

 

Still some model support and ensemble support for a big storm here on February 1st. We'll call it "Chinook's storm." On the 12z GFS, 700mb winds are predicted to be directly easterly in Fort Collins, 18z Monday February 1st. You know what that means-- snow at 1" per hour. Well, if the entire storm disappears, I guess I will have to live with some minor disappointment.

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Yeah the nice thing about being out here is that we aren't reliant on one or two huge storms to reach snow climo.  Don't really have to sweat individual storms at all.

 

Mod snow in Whitefish now.  I wish we had radar around here lol

 

edit: about 1 inch so far... 1-4 forecasted.  Current depth around 12 inches i guess... hard to tell.

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Mercurial, I suppose you could look at forecast short term reflectivity or forecast short term snow totals from the HRRR or 4km NAM if the Missoula radar doesn't reach you very well.

 

Is there a lot of terrain-blocking by the radar at Missoula?

 

http://weather.graphics/hrrr/hrrr_nw.php

 

http://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=HRRR

 

http://weather.cod.edu/forecast/

 

try the Northwest sector view on any of these web sites or Tropicaltidbits.

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Of course, this is a little too far out to really depend on this forecast, but so many runs of the GFS (and a couple of runs of the ECMWF) have shown very low pressure moving from CO to the southern Plains. If the surface low stays south, it's a hit for my house.

 

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Mercurial, I suppose you could look at forecast short term reflectivity or forecast short term snow totals from the HRRR or 4km NAM if the Missoula radar doesn't reach you very well.

 

Is there a lot of terrain-blocking by the radar at Missoula?

 

http://weather.graphics/hrrr/hrrr_nw.php

 

http://www.pivotalweather.com/model.php?m=HRRR

 

http://weather.cod.edu/forecast/

 

try the Northwest sector view on any of these web sites or Tropicaltidbits.

 

Many thanks!  Wasn't aware that the HRRR was available for free.

 

There's a lot of mountains that seem to block the Missoula radar.  Radar availability in Western Montana generally is quite lacking.

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Still some model support and ensemble support for a big storm here on February 1st. We'll call it "Chinook's storm." On the 12z GFS, 700mb winds are predicted to be directly easterly in Fort Collins, 18z Monday February 1st. You know what that means-- snow at 1" per hour. Well, if the entire storm disappears, I guess I will have to live with some minor disappointment.

NWS is biting a little, in its BOU AFD this afternoon. Storm Chinook (I HATE naming non-tropical systems) is entering the crystal ball...

 

I think most of my dislike of winter storm names is the media tendency to name everything. Last weekend's NE storm deserves something (maybe unprintable), but most don't.

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Gary Lezak thinks the 2/2 storm is the 12/12 storm recurrence here. I had 1/26 as a date to watch here, and areas near me (Santa Fe, and other side of the mountains) did get snow, and I based that on 12/12 +45 days. The 2/2 system is likely to be pretty intense and an over-performer if it is 12/12 storm - it was supposed to be a 0-1" snow for ABQ but we got 3"-6" city wide. I like the vicinity of 2/10 too, but I think generally Feb is between Jan/Dec for moisture/activity in CO/NM.

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GFS says wagons south to Denver, northern Kansas, northern Missouri.

 

AxA7Fxc.png

 

I flew home to my parents' place in southern PA for the storm this weekend. It did not disappoint, beating out even the '96 blizzard as far as total snowfall. Somewhere in the 31-33" range.

 

I wouldn't complain about only waiting a week to see another significant snowstorm.

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At this point, we can reasonably say the GFS, Canadian, ECMWF, and even the JMA look on board for a major eastern Colorado snowstorm with a chance of blizzard conditions in areas of the open plains. The question will be just in the details, or whether the storm will trend more south to New Mexico. There seems to be two distinct storms, really: Saturday night to Sunday morning, and Sunday night to Tuesday night.

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I flew home to my parents' place in southern PA for the storm this weekend. It did not disappoint, beating out even the '96 blizzard as far as total snowfall. Somewhere in the 31-33" range.

 

I wouldn't complain about only waiting a week to see another significant snowstorm.

I lived in Philly then Allentown for the '93 and '96 storms. Really fun and impressive volumes of snow. 1 foot there is like 2 feet here because it's so much denser. Must have been truly incredible last weekend!

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Here's what I'm thinking for next week: 

 

 

 

Also, anyone else concerned about EURO? Seems to be putting too much stock in Sunday night snow... runs low a bit south to be good for Denver Mon/Tue 

Yes, Saturday night-Sunday storm may not be much of a storm for the Plains/cities. We'll have to watch that. Definitely some snow there for the northern CO mountains. The Euro does have the surface low farther south. I guess that brings up the question of whether the New Mexico mountain front (Santa Fe to Raton) will get a 6-18" or, on the other hand, possibly the Cheyenne to Casper corridor getting 6-10".

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Today, Kremmling's high was 23, but Estes Park was in the upper 40's.  They are close to the same elevation, on two opposite sides of RMNP. It just goes to show the difference between trapped cold air in in the interior high valleys vs. dry-adiabatic mixed air, east of the Continental Divide.

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OK, time to start taking our possible storm as if it might really happen, though things seem kind of strung out (really strung out if you look at the ECMWF from what I hear, though I can't get to it).

GFS has been pretty consistent all day with 10+ inches for most of the Front Range Sun through Tues. WPC paints about 1" QPF as well. Could be windy too.

The No Accumulation Model seems less at the start but it only goes to 84 hrs.

 

Thoughts? I imagine I'll stay up to see what happens with the 00z runs.

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I am sure you guys have looked at some of the models today, so I don't feel a need to post any of them right now. Here's my contribution. I think the 500mb low is going to be moving too quickly to be a 20-24" type situation for Denver or most areas below 7000ft near the cities. The real true great storms have had a slower-developing system, with more time to drop snow. A couple of the GFS runs today seem to be picking up on some higher QPF from Pueblo/Trinidad out to Kansas-- the 00z GFS had 19" well east of Pueblo. So I wonder if that section will be harder to predict.

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Not much change overnight in models; NAM still the outlier at 12z with 5" or less for much of the northern 2/3 of the I-25 corridor, others all saying a foot give or take a few, with about an inch of QPF. WPC takes the 1"+ precip really north, maybe it's picking up on more from the Sunday snow. Anybody able to see the Euro? I can see the 500 mb which seems to be at the right latitude but still fast, as it was yesterday.

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Winter storm watch for northern Front Range. Almost same watch information posted by Pueblo NWS for the southern Front Range..

--

...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM LATE SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGHTUESDAY MORNING...THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN DENVER HAS ISSUED A WINTER STORMWATCH...WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM LATE SUNDAY NIGHT THROUGH TUESDAYMORNING.* TIMING...SNOW WILL DEVELOP SUNDAY NIGHT AND GRADUALLY INCREASE  THROUGH MONDAY AND MONDAY NIGHT. THE SNOW IS EXPECTED TO FINALLY  TAPER OFF TUESDAY MORNING.* SNOW ACCUMULATIONS...6 TO 12 INCHES POSSIBLE...WITH THE HEAVIER  AMOUNTS FAVORING LOCATIONS CLOSER TO THE FOOTHILLS AND PALMER  DIVIDE AREA.* WIND/VISIBILITY...NORTHEAST WINDS 10 TO 20 MPH. 

--

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