Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,606
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    ArlyDude
    Newest Member
    ArlyDude
    Joined

Mountain West- Winter


Chinook

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 368
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Well, we have a storm track going again in the USA, but not a lot to talk about here in the low elevations of Colorado. Next week looks to be colder, perhaps a lot of temps around freezing. My area got some rain on Monday night.

Looking back at the previous years' threads, here is what I have posted/estimated for my house. A lot of fun stuff.

2012-2013. April to May 2013 there was 39.5" at my house. (Fort Collins Weather Station had 79.2" for the winter.)

2013-2014: 50.8"

2014-2015: 40.2"

2015-2016: 74.4"

That's kind of cool that these seasonal numbers average out to 61.15". That's above normal for here.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I've been impressed with how much moisture we've had here this Fall in NM/AZ/TX - and how little of it made it to CO/UT. As warm as it was in October and the first half of November, Red River ski resort is open with a 24" inch base. November started after a nearly record warm October in the SW, but with the rains/snows, the forecast highs keep dropping for November. The month may now end up being only ~2F above normal for highs, after an October that was +5F or so.

My research shows that similarly wet Novembers produce binary results in the following winters for the SW: either extremely wet, or extremely dry. None of the years are "near average".

In my area July was pretty hot and slightly below normal for precip. October was a carbon copy. August was pretty cold and wet in most of the SW - Nov was wet too, but looks warm/near average. Will be interesting to see if September, which was near average/warm, with normal moisture will be similar to December.

Wet November.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Was just going to post something like that. The snow pack numbers should come up quite a bit from the current levels.

The whole "it's La Nina so it will be warm & wet in all of the Southwest" from NOAA is already starting to look bad. Most of the models have December pretty cold in the SW now. Probably cold enough to prevent a blow torch Dec-Feb even if one of the months after Dec warms dramatically. Accuweather has my average high at ~43.8F in Dec - around 4F below average, with 1.2" precip - essentially 90% of a winter's precip in one month. Have little faith in the precip number, but I think I buy the cold December.

In NM, this has to be one of our wettest Novembers ever, taking into account the storms coming through the next few days, and that doesn't exactly bode well for some huge December warm up either. Weak sun fighting troughs, snow, and a wet ground.

For Albuquerque specifically, accumulating snow in November makes a huge difference to whether the cold season ends up above average or not for snow. Even in a La Nina snow in November has historically lead to an snowier than average season 30% of the the time - near the long term normal odds. 

Next ten days look pretty awesome for just about every mountain range in the West.

 

 

Nov 26 Snow in the West.PNG

Snow in the West.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

There's a possible snowstorm for northern Colorado inside 168 hours now. Let's see if this actually happens now. This run of the GFS has some cold temperatures around 15 degrees for me at the time of this image. That should mean snow ratios greater than 12:1 if the snow happens.

7p5qUsT.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, Chinook said:

There's a possible snowstorm for northern Colorado inside 168 hours now. Let's see if this actually happens now. This run of the GFS has some cold temperatures around 15 degrees for me at the time of this image. That should mean snow ratios greater than 12:1 if the snow happens.

7p5qUsT.png

Thank goodness! Being with no snow at almost 9k feet in December is just insane. Keep doing the snow dances!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

00z GFS 24-hr total ending Tuesday at 5:00PM Mountain. Water equivalent is 0.94" for Denver and close to that for Fort Collins. NWS now predicting 2 degrees for Wednesday and Thursday morning here. NOTE: The 06z and 12z GFS both PREDICT 0" for DENVER. I have no idea what just happened!!!

tShDqtP.png

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, Chinook said:

00z GFS 24-hr total ending Tuesday at 5:00PM Mountain. Water equivalent is 0.94" for Denver and close to that for Fort Collins. NWS now predicting 2 degrees for Wednesday and Thursday morning here. NOTE: The 06z and 12z GFS both PREDICT 0" for DENVER. I have no idea what just happened!!!

tShDqtP.png

Gotta love forecasting in CO. I just wish it was going the other way. We could still use the moisture.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

00z GFS 24-hr total ending Tuesday at 5:00PM Mountain. Water equivalent is 0.94" for Denver and close to that for Fort Collins. NWS now predicting 2 degrees for Wednesday and Thursday morning here. NOTE: The 06z and 12z GFS both PREDICT 0" for DENVER. I have no idea what just happened!!!

 

Even computers can dream... then they wake up and get all objective again.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

00z GFS 24-hr total ending Tuesday at 5:00PM Mountain. Water equivalent is 0.94" for Denver and close to that for Fort Collins. NWS now predicting 2 degrees for Wednesday and Thursday morning here. NOTE: The 06z and 12z GFS both PREDICT 0" for DENVER. I have no idea what just happened!!!

 

Even computers can dream... then they wake up and get all objective again.

That's an interesting take on that. The GFS is snoozing at 5:00PM mountain time? I'm snoozing at 5:00AM mountain time.

Tonight's 00z GFS has the storm returning!!! with 0.35" to 0.45" liquid equivalent for the cities. That could make for a 7"-9" of snow with snow ratios of 20:1. That might be possible if the dendrite growth works out just right in the cold air, under 20F. Today's 18z GFS had QPF more like 0.23" to 0.29" for the cities.

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...