Chinook Posted July 7, 2017 Author Share Posted July 7, 2017 Yesterday, my camera caught just a little bit of this lightning bolt high in the sky that was partially obscured by clouds. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 8, 2017 Share Posted July 8, 2017 Not a great match by intensity, but June 2017 looks like 1957 (x3), 1994 (x2), 1997 (x3), 2002 (x2), 2006 (x2). Was actually a pretty hard match, but a lot of cities in north Florida had a top-ten coldest June, so I threw in 1957/1997 to make the SE cold. 2002/1994/2006 get most of the US warm/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 11, 2017 Author Share Posted July 11, 2017 The HRRR runs today are pretty aggressive in predicting moderate-strength rain showers and thunderstorms in Colorado, with 500-1000 J/kg of CAPE over the mountains and plains. It will be unlikely to get 0-6km shear values over 25 kt. Other convection-allowing models have some scattered showers. Perhaps some impact for Denver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted July 12, 2017 Share Posted July 12, 2017 Everything fizzled once it came off the foothills. Looked promising, then went poof. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 I was looking through the Jamstec monthly Modoki data (it goes back to 1870!) and I couldn't help but notice that "negative" Modoki values are more common historically in weaker solar cycles. That's a good sign for the winter, less likely to have a strong Modoki signature. For Dec-Feb from 1931-32 to 2016-17, the DJF Modoki value correlates at about 0.05 R^2 to July-June solar activity. That's actually fairly amazing given the length of time involved. http://www.jamstec.go.jp/frcgc/research/d1/iod/DATA/emi.monthly.txt Their Modoki definition is different from the one I tend to use for the SW, they do: Box A SSTA = 165E to 140W, 10N to 10S Box B SSTA = 110W to 70W, 15S to 5N Box C SSTA = 10S to 20N, 125E to 145E Modoki Value = (Box A)-(0.5*Box B)-(0.5*Box C) Biggest "modoki" El Ninos for DJF come out to 1957, 1968, 2009. Biggest "east based" El Ninos are of course 1997, 1982, but 1976 is third. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 13, 2017 Author Share Posted July 13, 2017 Yesterday night and this morning, my area may have gotten 0.07" total, plus some thick clouds in the daytime. Right now, there is some long-lasting stratiform rain that goes from Denver to Goodland - an unusual situation in a time of the year when there is normally convective rain. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted July 13, 2017 Share Posted July 13, 2017 we got about 0.1" last night. Humid!! Felt great. And no thunder, just stratiform light rain. Of course models were saying we'd get over half an inch, but you know that was too optimistic. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted July 15, 2017 Share Posted July 15, 2017 Dewpoint got almost to 60 early this AM, felt really humid. Sprinkled much of the AM, now building stationary thunderstorms over the southern Cherry Creek drainage south of Parker. Wonder if there will be any flooding? Ground pretty dry, but we will see. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 15, 2017 Author Share Posted July 15, 2017 Rainfall continues to tease Denver. Right now there is a 5940m upper level low over Denver, and that's about the highest upper level low I've ever seen-- that is, it is a low pressure within a 5940m+ ridge. As for my area, dew points have been 55 or slightly higher for some of the last few days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 15, 2017 Share Posted July 15, 2017 Pending any rain today (unlikely) this is one of the driest July 1-July 15 periods on record for Albuquerque. Only 0.01" at the airport. It's interesting because the rains have been pretty decent this month just south and east of the city, but not much at all for the city. The HRRR has a line moving through the city after midnight. It's also a bit cooler than last year, despite the dryness. When the July mean high here is over 94F it tends to not snow much, or at all, in December in the city, so nice to see it slowly trending below 94F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 18, 2017 Author Share Posted July 18, 2017 The summer rainfall, including our North American Monsoon contribution, has been mainly a failure for many of the years I lived here. I moved here in 2006 at the height of the D3 drought. I used the U.S. Drought Monitor archives to find drought designations in past years. Many summers have been warmer than normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 We should have some temps up around 96 for some of us tomorrow, with 101 in southwest Nebraska. This GFS 21-hr forecast should be 5-9 degrees too warm for the Front Range corridor here, and perhaps some 5 degrees too warm in other locations. I don't know why this is happening. The GFS temp profiles are super-adiabatic for too much of the lower atmosphere near Denver. The weird part is that the GFS has been too moist and too cool with some of the Midwest in various times this summer-- seemingly the opposite boundary-layer problem. The GFS should be a perfectly fine short-range model when cool thunderstorms are not dominating the temperature. NCEP keeps making the GFS better, right? Of course. In fact, the government says there will be a new NCEP global model created in 2018, that will be better than the GFS. My $5 bet is that the new model will be delayed by a year. In fact, I bet another $5 that when the new global model is operational, the U.S. will still be trying to catch up with the ECMWF modeling systems for a long time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 yup, it's 21z and while brutally hot, not as crazy as that forecast. DEN is 98 and APA 96 this hour. Pueblo is 101. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted July 19, 2017 Share Posted July 19, 2017 22 hours ago, Chinook said: The summer rainfall, including our North American Monsoon contribution, has been mainly a failure for many of the years I lived here. I moved here in 2006 at the height of the D3 drought. I used the U.S. Drought Monitor archives to find drought designations in past years. Many summers have been warmer than normal. Nice. We moved here in 2010 so have never experienced a "normal" summer. It seems like the Plains high dominates every year. The monsoon happens, it just doesn't get east of the Divide in northeast CO, or north of CO Springs. If it doesn't squeeze another 100 miles east this week, it might be a nonsoon, again. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 19, 2017 Author Share Posted July 19, 2017 The Rockies have swept the Padres and scores 36 runs in the last 3 games. The ball really flies when there is low density, like when it is hot in Denver! Also, the Rockies are hitting very well, and they have a lot of motivation to beat the Diamondbacks in the Wild Card race. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 WPC seems to think we get some big time rains over the next week. Have you guys looked into the AMO/PDO impacts on the monsoon in CO? I know in NM, the monsoon (usually) peaks in Aug when the AMO is cold, and peaks in Jul when the AMO is warm. PDO tends to enhance it when it is positive. Using 1931-2016, the PDO, the sun, and precip in the prior Nov-Apr are the best predictors (still very weak) for total monsoon rainfall Jun 15 - Sept 30. I'd kill for >=2" rain in ABQ in August, hasn't happened here since 2006, seems to be the longest >=10 year break between >=2" in Aug since at least 1892. My analogs for the Summer had July 25 - Aug 1 as the most likely wet period, in terms of frequency of days w/ >=0.1" precip, so it's nice to see the coming days looking active. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted July 20, 2017 Share Posted July 20, 2017 Up here, north of Estes Park, year to date I have 11.17" which is tracking about 20% ahead of climatology. Still rather green up here as well. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 22, 2017 Author Share Posted July 22, 2017 We had a 90-degree streak of 5 days, with 95.9 deg on Wednesday, KFNL airport was 100, as 37.8 C is 100 F. KFNL 192356Z AUTO 29007KT 10SM CLR 32/09 A3006 RMK AO2 LTG DSNT NE SLP110 T03170089 10378 20311 55001 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DoctorMu Posted July 23, 2017 Share Posted July 23, 2017 On 7/19/2017 at 11:09 PM, raindancewx said: WPC seems to think we get some big time rains over the next week. Have you guys looked into the AMO/PDO impacts on the monsoon in CO? I know in NM, the monsoon (usually) peaks in Aug when the AMO is cold, and peaks in Jul when the AMO is warm. PDO tends to enhance it when it is positive. Using 1931-2016, the PDO, the sun, and precip in the prior Nov-Apr are the best predictors (still very weak) for total monsoon rainfall Jun 15 - Sept 30. I'd kill for >=2" rain in ABQ in August, hasn't happened here since 2006, seems to be the longest >=10 year break between >=2" in Aug since at least 1892. My analogs for the Summer had July 25 - Aug 1 as the most likely wet period, in terms of frequency of days w/ >=0.1" precip, so it's nice to see the coming days looking active. This should be your chance. They Death ridge is sliding into Texas next week, along with the heat. More return flow on the backside of the ridge for NM, CO. However, around the beginning of August it appears the ridge may slide back to the Four Corners. Hoping for one last shot of rain, and it is your turn next week. One man's ceiling is another man's floor... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 24, 2017 Share Posted July 24, 2017 My analogs for Summer had a pretty warm July nationally with some kind of ~cool area by the four corners and somewhere in the Midwest, looks pretty decent. Analogs certainly had the heat over Montana which has been pretty incredible this month. The cool in the East is NW of where I had it, and the cool in the West is Southeast of where I had it so far. Seems like my analogs produce "clockwise" spatial errors which I don't get. Have to see if it corrects in the remainder of the month. It's nice having a relatively normal July in ABQ - 93F through 23 days is much better than 96F through 23 days. Last July had: 29 Days that were 90F or hotter... 22 Days that were 95F or hotter... 10 Days that were 98F or hotter... 3 Days that were 100F or hotter... July 2017 (1-23) has had: <=28 Days 90F or hotter (likely under 28 w/ rains) 6 Days 95F or hotter (may go up by 1-2 for the end of the month) 2 Days 98F or hotter 0 Days 100F or hotter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 25, 2017 Author Share Posted July 25, 2017 I guess it was another hot one DEN 99 GXY 101 FNL 98 Longmont 98 Erie 98 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 25, 2017 Share Posted July 25, 2017 Asked Nate Mantua for the PDO value earlier, he updated it. Down to 0.79 in June, from 0.88 in May. Way down y/y too. It's impossible to do an accurate winter forecast this early, but the PDO and AMO values both look lower than last year, with the Modoki status also flipping. The Modoki status from the Jamstec has flipped to -0.5 for winter to +0.15 in June. Solar is similar but lower. Suspect it will be drier/colder for much of the SW this winter, whether this ends up as an El Nino or Neutral. Lower PDO/Sun/AMO should all lower moisture availability. Based on latest index values through June, I like something like this for my 'ocean/solar' automated analog system: ONI: +0.8C (ONI value, DJF) PDO: +0.4 (Nov-Apr value) AMO: +0.175 (Nov-Apr value) ONIp: -0.4C (previous ONI winter value) SUN: +18 (annualized July-June) MOD: +0.25 (from Jamstec monthly EMI table, east based Ninos have -Modoki values, extremely positive values are over 0.4 or so) MONS: +3.75" (use this to make sure observed weather lines up with climate background) A blend of 1943(x5), 1951(x1), 1953(x7), 1986(x4), 2006(x1), 2009(x2) works well at re-creating the conditions above. Out of the total range for each scale, the produced values are all within 5%. Would be a pretty warm winter nationally, but cold in the SW, and much of the West in Dec. The Modoki value is the hardest to predict, but it is almost always positive in El Ninos. The Midwest / South / Southwest seem like they'd be stuck in a semi-permanent rex-block which would fry the middle of the country but keep the SW cold. If you all give me the seven values, can output the best matches from my auto-analog model. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 27, 2017 Share Posted July 27, 2017 NAM, GFS, HRRR, and Canadian all have big rains tonight for the city...going to be a huge bust if it fails/misses somehow. Worth noting though, our driest July years (<=1 inch rain) tend to be followed by big Augusts. CFS does seem to like a cool/wet August. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted July 28, 2017 Author Share Posted July 28, 2017 The populated areas of Colorado had some reasonable amounts of rain on Wednesday night. Fort Collins, Loveland, Boulder, Denver, and Colorado Springs all had areas over 0.50" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted July 28, 2017 Share Posted July 28, 2017 We had some decent rains this morning as well, but only 0.05 - 0.20" in the city. Part of the issue this month is the Monsoon has been slamming Arizona over and over again while largely missing New Mexico. Should note that when Albuquerque gets 1 inch of rain or less in July, we do (more frequently) see bigger rain in August. City hasn't more than 1.6 inches in August (+10%) since 2006, and historically it "should" happen every three years or so. Would kill for 2 inches of rain or more in August - it tends to cool off Sept and fall more quickly since the sun is back to late April levels of light by late August. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted August 1, 2017 Share Posted August 1, 2017 Canadian Model updated today. Has a cool August for much of NM/CO. Also has much of the West wet - but I think it is off. The big change is the model now shows a (flat) Neutral winter instead of a moderate El Nino. This makes sense given Nino 3.4 has cooled rapidly since July 24th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted August 3, 2017 Author Share Posted August 3, 2017 The rainy season isn't quite gone yet! Several short-lived storms hit Fort Collins, one storm hit at 4:00AM, according to the radar. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted August 3, 2017 Share Posted August 3, 2017 Awesome Chinook. You guys have seemed to miss out on many of the rains this year so great to see those storm totals. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted August 3, 2017 Share Posted August 3, 2017 We woke to some good bangs about the same time (actually one of my dogs woke us up) and got about 0.3". The COCORAHS data from your picture really shows the NW-SE progression of the core of the storm nicely. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted August 3, 2017 Author Share Posted August 3, 2017 53 minutes ago, mayjawintastawm said: We woke to some good bangs about the same time (actually one of my dogs woke us up) and got about 0.3". The COCORAHS data from your picture really shows the NW-SE progression of the core of the storm nicely. That NW-SE zone was from the late afternoon storms Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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