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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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While in a drought, nothing seems to work. It is the WPC's job to sort of over-forecast rain, that is, they put numbers on the map that are indicative of some of the higher possibilities in a region.

On today's US Drought monitor, Fort Collins to Denver is now in D1 drought. It is a pretty narrow area.

My house has gotten 1.58" since summer started. Averages for Fort Collins are June 2.17, July 1.71, August 1.59. So my place has gotten less rain in 2 1/2 months than we should get in any 1 calendar month of summer.

In my 10 years in Fort Collins, summers have averaged hotter and drier than normal.

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Summer 2016 is turning into a weird summer here, I think we're going to have the biggest drop off in mean highs from July to August in at least 85 years in Albuquerque.

95.6F-->~87F? Record drop is 7.6F.

Most years  July-->Aug is drops by 3F to 5F, last year was odd too, Aug was way warmer than July, greatest increase from July to Aug since 1931.

The rest of the month look fairly cool for August - so this may end up as one of our coldest Augusts after one of our hottest Julys - can't find a pattern anything like that in the records here. Every other July is in the middle of a smoldering hot Summer, with the other months all normal to blazing, never cool.

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3 minutes ago, Chinook said:

wow, is it still summer? my place is colder than Yellowstone (KP60)

 

fUnl9iN.gif

I was pretty sure we'd get a cool month in Aug-Oct, with the +PDO briefly taking over before the weak La Nina/neutral pattern gets established for the winter. If it ends up being August, I'll be a bit surprised, I was leaning towards a normal Aug/Oct with a cold September (maybe some snow above 8,000 feet in NM, and over 6,000 feet in CO). For whatever reason July rains/temp is a decent indicator of early snow here (Oct 10 - Jan 10), with August a decent indicator of late snow (Jan 11 - Apr 10) so that's kind of what I expect now - torch in Nov/Dec, cold in Feb/Mar, some kind of violent transition in January (we've had a weak monsoon here in NM - but we did get ~1.4" rain from July 29-Aug 4, so when that period cycles through the MJO, into winter, will be watching). Last three years July was wet and avg to cold, and we had lots of good snow in both the valleys/mountains early. In 2015, Aug was also cold, and we got a ****load of snow late Feb/early March/ and then again in mid-Feb. Last year, Aug was hot and dry, couldn't buy a drop of rain/snow here at all in March, and Feb was also dry/warm.

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We had our first sub 80F high in the city today since June 1st. This pattern flip is really impressive to me - we had 32 days at or over 95F in June and July, and then none since, with none in the foreseeable future. Aug mean high is down to 87.85F through 21 days, with Accuweather showing every day from 8/22 to 8/31 with a high <=85F. Parts of NM seem like they've had rain almost every day in August.

Snowed in NM overnight too (granted, 12,000 feet up).

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So far this month, CO, WY, NM and MT have been near normal to below normal temperatures. I hear that the East Coast has some cities that have had a record-warm August so far, even with that +2F to +4F orange shade on this map, that's much above average.

 

P6srIsT.png

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It looks like 1 to 4" of rain has happened in Colorado Springs, but I'm not sure. Storms may be stalling near Denver, but not that much rain has fallen in Denver.

308 PM MDT MON AUG 29 2016

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PUEBLO HAS EXTENDED THE

* FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR...
  EXCESSIVE RAIN IN...
  NORTHWESTERN EL PASO COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL COLORADO...

* UNTIL 430 PM MDT

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It's very difficult to get a good temperature match for August 2016 in the US from analogs, but this works pretty well:

2007 x4

2006 x4

2005 x4

1974 x8

1995, 2011, 2010, 2014, 1998 can be useful to include too - but the combo above is quite close to the anomaly map for the month you see on Weatherbell from the satellites. 

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4 hours ago, Chinook said:

It looks like 1 to 4" of rain has happened in Colorado Springs, but I'm not sure. Storms may be stalling near Denver, but not that much rain has fallen in Denver.


308 PM MDT MON AUG 29 2016

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PUEBLO HAS EXTENDED THE

* FLASH FLOOD WARNING FOR...
  EXCESSIVE RAIN IN...
  NORTHWESTERN EL PASO COUNTY IN EAST CENTRAL COLORADO...

* UNTIL 430 PM MDT

Yeah, the past several weeks really there has been lots of rain near the Springs and south by 20 miles/north by 10 miles. Hanging there. We have friends in Widefield whose lawn is a foot high.

Today has a blob north of Denver and west/north which has not been typical. Centennial Airport got a quick 0.3" just south of us in a thunderstorm, and we got a rock.

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0.05" to 1" in Fort Collins. Max of 1.0" was about 2 mi south of Harmony Rd.

0.45" to 4.17" in Colorado Springs. COS airport got 0.45". The COS airport summer total will be 6.23" for the summer months unless they get more tomorrow or Wednesday. That's like 3x to 4x as much as my house for the summer total. If you consider then that some spot in Colorado Springs got 10" of rain for the summer, that's almost 6x as much as my house.

I noticed that earlier in the summer, the COS area, even downtown, had several hail reports of 1"+. That had to have dented a few thousand cars over the months of June and July.

PHD75xT.png

 

kpLEBiI.png

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Up here, I am 1.63" month to date.  With this pattern, I suspect we'll pick up another couple of tenth's between today and tomorrow, for an exit of around 1.75"-1.90" for August. There is still a fire ban in force, but just enough daily moisture to keep my paranoia level in check.  I miss my smoker/bbq which is banned under the fire ban.

 

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CoCoRAHS max rainfall in Fort Collins was 0.31". Also Colorado Springs max on CoCoRAHS was 2.33". I saw some pictures of hail drifts on the streets of Colorado Springs yesterday. Denver had 0.04" to 0.46" yesterday.

 

My backyard has had 1.94" this SUMMER. This is bordering on the driest summer I have ever lived in Fort Collins. I will check the last 10 years of official Fort Collins records to see if it is the driest summer I have lived in Fort Collins.

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I'm looking forward to September.

La Nina w/ a +PDO is wet in ABQ and in much of the SW historically in Sept. La Nina w/ a +AMO is wet in Sept. Actually, if the +PDO does hold on, SON is favored to be wet overall, with DJF favored dry (but not as dry as in a La Nina w/o the +PDO), and then MAM average.

Our coldest third of Augusts here are usually (60% of the time) followed by snowier than average cold seasons (Oct-May). The years with a hot June-July, cold Aug all tended to have average to below average snow from Oct-Dec, with a lot of snow in Jan-Feb, and then average snow in March, and either a lot or none in April. Would like to see September and how the monsoon finishes, but I kind of lean towards something like this for ABQ this winter:

Oct - cool/wet, no snow

Nov - warm/dry - 1" snow late

Dec - warm/dry - 0.5" snow

Jan - warm/wet - 4" snow

Feb - cold/wet - 6" snow

Mar - cold/moist - 1" snow

Apr - warm/wet - no snow

May - cool/wet - no snow

Will feel better about March if we somehow end up at >=2.7" precip in Aug+Oct. We're at 0.86" now, but don't think it will rain today, maybe we get some more tomorrow - even so, it's hard to get the amount of rain we'd need in October to top 2.7". Shame, because 27/29 years (93%) with >=2.7" rain in Aug and Oct see snow in March, all others, it's more like 58%.

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