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Mountain West- Winter


Chinook

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Something at least similar to the 00z GFS (which I posted) should be likely, or it may be even underdone.  The 12z Euro continues to show a major storm of over 8" of snow from several miles east of DIA, to North Platte NE, to Lamar/La Junta CO, to Raton, New Mexico. So that should be considered a possibility.

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There are some indicators saying there will be an upper level trough in Colorado on Jan 21-22. The GEFS means have a 500mb trough in UT/CO and a low in eastern Colorado at this time. The last few GFS runs have had a similar idea. It looks like there will be a cold air mass in the West after Jan 20-22.

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Take a look at the 06z GFS 240 hr time frame. The models may continue to tease us with blizzards as they struggle with different solutions with the western trough.  On yesterday's 18z GFS run, a more easterly upslope big storm was on Jan 22.  but today's 06z run, a more northerly-wind big storm is on Jan. 25. That's not very consistent.

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Having a daily record rainfall event in Albuquerque today (0.62" as of 9:52 pm), records back to 1931 in the same place, back to 1892 in other parts of town - and it is still raining at 10:20 pm, although its down to 34F or so and trying to go over to snow.

This is also the first time since the winter of 2009-10 that January has been wetter than December here in the same winter. Mountains are going to gorgeous in the morning, given that is never got above 43F today in the city..

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My place got about 0.7". I didn't measure it but I just estimated based off CoCoRAHS. Areas on I-25 got about 1". 

Yesterday's 12z GFS missed Denver's snow entirely. So that's bad.

Flagler, CO got 7.0". Report is very recent. Otherwise, I don't know exactly how much snow happened, or is currently happening, out east between Denver and Kansas. It is still snowing east of Pueblo.

Some of the Euro runs in previous days clearly had too much snow for NW Kansas-- some of that QPF was freezing rain.

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The main models are showing some version of agreement about a possible storm around here on Jan 24-25.  The GFS has snow for us on Tuesday Jan 24 at 12z. One weird thing I have noticed. Over the 10 years that I have been here, it seems to snow on Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings around here. I don't really have any particular theory as to why that is true. If it snows on Jan 24th, that's another Tuesday. At this point, it may take many more runs of the models to decide on a solution. There seems to be a lot going on at 500mb.

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14 hours ago, Chinook said:

The main models are showing some version of agreement about a possible storm around here on Jan 24-25.  The GFS has snow for us on Tuesday Jan 24 at 12z. One weird thing I have noticed. Over the 10 years that I have been here, it seems to snow on Tuesday nights and Wednesday mornings around here. I don't really have any particular theory as to why that is true. If it snows on Jan 24th, that's another Tuesday. At this point, it may take many more runs of the models to decide on a solution. There seems to be a lot going on at 500mb.

Well, that's because I have 7:30 AM meetings many Wednesdays. Funny because I was thinking the same thing about Tuesdays only it was all day, because Tuesday is trash pickup day on our street. Always knew the weather was just one vast conspiracy... :) 

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This has been kind of a nuts winter, but it does seem like the +PDO is having a big impact on the Northwest, as it's a bad signal for WA/ID/MT snow. For all the cold in Montana and the Northwest, the areas from 35N to 42N seem to be doing best, which is consistent to me with the storm track being displaced. There can't be many winters when the mountains of Washington do as well as he mountains of New Mexico in a borderline La Nina.

Washington mountain range average - 91% of 1981-2010 normal (11 ranges)

New Mexico mountain range average - 103% of 1981-2010 normal (10 ranges)

Western Snowpack 1.17.17.PNG

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I was looking back through the ONI records and reconstructions, and if the Euro/Jamstec/Canadian are right about ONI reaching +0.3C - +0.7C in JJA, after being -0.3C to -0.7C in DJF, it should be a pretty interesting Spring. Only found seven years since 1900 that look even remotely similar to ONI in those ranges before & after spring:

1918, 1923, 1932, 1963, 1968, 1986, 2009

We're near the solar minimum now, which means the sun has more of an impact than usual, was interesting seeing the multiples of 11-years showing up.

1918 --> 9 x 11 = 99, 2017 - 99 = 1918

1963 --> 5 x 11 = 55, 2017 - 55 = 1962 (close enough)

1986 --> 3 x 11 = 33, 2017 - 33 = 1984 (close enough)

1923-->1934-->1945-->1956-->1967 (very close to 1968) --> 1979 -->1990-->2001

1932-->1943-->1954-->1965-->1976-->1987 (very close to 1986) -->1998 ---> 2009

There are definitely a lot of years on the same "wave length" so to speak.

1932 and 2009 (+77)

1918 and 2017 (+99)

1923 and 1968 (+44 - almost)

1932 and 1986 (+55 - almost)

1963 and 2017 (+55 - almost)

Against 1981-2010, it's a 1-2F below pattern for much of the West, with the country a bit drier than normal outside the SE.

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The storm of Tuesday has been shifting towards a minor event. The 500mb low will be more of a trough, becoming a closed low in WY or SD. The snow total plots show heavy snow about 0.5" QPF for the mountains north of I-70, then moderate snow for low elevations of Wyoming, and almost none from Cheyenne south to New Mexico on I-25. The mountains will really just keep getting snow for days and days.

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My area got some snow at 8:45PM last night, into the nighttime. The wet snow must have gotten more slippery as the temperatures cooled below freezing. Many reports of slippery roads and slippery sidewalks. Fort Collins got a bit more this afternoon. Here are some storm reports from Nebraska.

 

niBOH0I.jpg

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Here is a clear sunset (ish) picture of Long's Peak with maybe a lenticular cloud edge, Friday. Today, the weather has warmed up to 59 degrees and there are strong wind gusts (or at least 30mph) across northeast Colorado. Trash is blowing around in the streets.

57S1Vhz.jpg

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Been very cold and dry here.  We finish with a Jan temp departure of about -10, following a -6 Dec.  I think the snowpack IMBY is probably slightly below average, but on the other hand we've had almost zero melting all winter long, which has been great.  Historic winter at the valley floors though; nonstop deep snow in all the population centers going all the way back to early Dec.  

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After a cold start to the month, we'll finish within a degree of normal, with pretty close to normal (i.e. dry) precip too. Getting pretty boring, though it's nice to walk around with no coat today. Hopefully February will be more interesting! It's been a couple years at least since we've had an interesting February.

Interesting multilevel lenticular clouds today too, with a mountain wave that seems to be developing.

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4 hours ago, Mercurial said:

Been very cold and dry here.  We finish with a Jan temp departure of about -10, following a -6 Dec.  I think the snowpack IMBY is probably slightly below average, but on the other hand we've had almost zero melting all winter long, which has been great.  Historic winter at the valley floors though; nonstop deep snow in all the population centers going all the way back to early Dec.  

I try to analog winters based on three methods...and it looked frigid in Montana in all three setups...anywhere from 3-8F below normal for the season, and then a frigid March. I do think February is probably a lot warmer than Dec/Jan by anomalies, but I have young-ish cousins in Billings complaining they didn't know it could get this cold. Probably hadn't heard about some of your legendary winters.

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Getting absolutely smothered in snow right now.  Jayzus.  We have a WSW for an additional 30 to 46 inches of snow on top of the foot we've received so far from this system.  If this storm pans out as forecasted, I'll never forget it.  40+ inches of snow from a single event is very rare even in the high elevations of Montana.  

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