Mountain West Discussion

[raindancewx]

European verification updated for August - the July 1 Nino 3.4 for August was pretty bad. Much better on Aug 1 obviously.

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/charts/catalogue/seasonal_nino_plumes_public?time=2017080100,0,2017080100&nino_area=3.4&forecast_type_and_skill_measure=plumes

[mayjawintastawm]

Anybody see any aurora tonight? Webcam from Maine was spectacular. I just walked the dogs and there was too much light and smoke to see anything even if it were there. I thought it would be cool to see an aurora in Aurora.

[Chinook]

I did not check the sky last night. The SWPC model auroral oval did not even make it into Montana at the time I would have been looking. Even though the Kp index (geomagnetic) was 8, which should be very favorable, it seemed like I was unlikely to see aurora.  The sky is still crud. The forest fire smoke has been going on for a week.  The most reduction in visibility was on Labor Day, during the cold front. I could smell the forest fire smoke on Labor Day, but I couldn't on any other day. Maybe if we have another large geomagnetic storm in wintertime, we will get a bit of a chance for aurora. The only interesting weather was on Tuesday when it was 65 degrees.

[Chinook]

My loop of Hurricane Harvey, based on once-every-3 hour images from the CIRA/Colorado State web site. I originally thought this was going to be a much shorter loop, as I thought Hurricane Harvey wouldn't look too interesting on IR after about 24 hrs.

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Hurricane_Harvey_IR_loop.html

[raindancewx]

Looks like some cool air is coming? Low snow levels if there is precip?

[Mercurial]

Snow levels to 6,000 ft here this Thurs/Fri.  Looking forward to putting the kibosh on this dreadful fire season. 

[ValpoVike]

According to the long range GFS, it looks like there is potential for a more significant cold air intrusion during the last week of Sept.  Not too crazy for end of Sept, but likely a pattern shift.

[mayjawintastawm]

29th day in a row with no measurable precip at DEN, we'll see if this shower right now produces more than a trace (doesn't look like it will). 90 again today. +5 for the month temp-wise so far. Can't wait for cooler! Most years, the higher summits have at least a dusting before now, but not yet this season.

just curious: does Pikes Peak or Mt Evans have a measuring station on the summit (nothing on Wunderground), or better yet, climate data?

[mayjawintastawm]

On 9/9/2017 at 2:34 PM, Chinook said:

My loop of Hurricane Harvey, based on once-every-3 hour images from the CIRA/Colorado State web site. I originally thought this was going to be a much shorter loop, as I thought Hurricane Harvey wouldn't look too interesting on IR after about 24 hrs.

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Hurricane_Harvey_IR_loop.html

Cool. That thing was the weirdest TC I've ever seen. Hung around as a TS for a while, then suddenly exploded, then became the rain zombie from out of nowhere. It wouldn't go away and that feeder band from the S just served as a desalination plant for the entire Gulf as it dumped it on top of SE Texas.

[raindancewx]

With the big time drought in Montana, my view is that any cold air anomalies in the West this winter will be further south than last winter, over the interior West. I've been trying to pick analog years that had ND/MT droughts and similar solar/enso/PDO/AMO configurations.

A lot of years I like have it pretty cold over Nevada, with some cold, but less intense over the rest of the West. Don't think CO/WY/MT are cold at all - even with a La Nina - maybe ID/WA/OR/CA are 1F below normal.

[ValpoVike]

4 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

29th day in a row with no measurable precip at DEN, we'll see if this shower right now produces more than a trace (doesn't look like it will). 90 again today. +5 for the month temp-wise so far. Can't wait for cooler! Most years, the higher summits have at least a dusting before now, but not yet this season.

just curious: does Pikes Peak or Mt Evans have a measuring station on the summit (nothing on Wunderground), or better yet, climate data?

Crested Butte, I believe, got coated earlier this week.  Longs Peak had a nice dusting during a storm in early August.

[raindancewx]

Well...Jamstec has gone from Super El Nino for the winter to weak La Nina in the space of about four months. I think its somewhat off on where the cold is though. Interesting that it thinks globally it will be a cold winter though. Wasn't terrible idea for winter for my area last Sept - it had NM warm & wet - despite the La Nina - which verified.

[Mercurial]

Hoping to see first flakes tomorrow night mixing with rain, we'll see how it goes.  Air is still smoky despite chilly temps. 

[Chinook]

I bet Montana, Idaho, and North Dakota are liking this drought relief.

[Chinook]

GOES-16 Montanavision. Parts of Montana are in a D4 drought, but many areas just got over 0.5" of rain and it was entirely cloud covered.

[Chinook]

I am getting some lightning here. It's the first in a long time. Essentially, my place has only gotten two or three traces of rain since mid-August.

[Chinook]

Over an hour after I posted that, my place had frequent lightning and 0.25" of rain in some 35 minutes. The cold front has come through. It is cold and drizzly here.

[ValpoVike]

42 minutes ago, Chinook said:

Over an hour after I posted that, my place had frequent lightning and 0.25" of rain in some 35 minutes. The cold front has come through. It is cold and drizzly here.

Yeah, a definite fall feel to the air today.

[Chinook]

The big story here is that the northern Rockies and Plains have had some rain. Here are many areas of Montana that got 2" of rain recently. There should be more rain and snow for the Northwest in the next week

 

[Mercurial]

On 9/16/2017 at 11:03 AM, Chinook said:

The big story here is that the northern Rockies and Plains have had some rain. Here are many areas of Montana that got 2" of rain recently. There should be more rain and snow for the Northwest in the next week

 

As you might be able to discern from that map, we got completely screwed IMBY lol.  We direly need some rain/snow to help with the fires in Glacier Park.  The Sprague fire is super close to the Going to the Sun Road and various popular landmarks/trails/campgrounds.  The forecast for this week does look promising, but the Sprague fire is about 1000 feet away from massive devastation along the GttS road.  The local AFD keeps mentioning the possibility of snow showers and graupel even at the lowest elevations this week, which would go a long way. 

[Chinook]

We've got a relatively rare weather problem for Broncos vs. Cowboys- some lightning. They have delayed the game and asked the fans to take cover. Hopefully this does not cause too much problems for the game.

[ValpoVike]

On 9/13/2017 at 3:56 PM, mayjawintastawm said:

29th day in a row with no measurable precip at DEN, we'll see if this shower right now produces more than a trace (doesn't look like it will). 90 again today. +5 for the month temp-wise so far. Can't wait for cooler! Most years, the higher summits have at least a dusting before now, but not yet this season.

just curious: does Pikes Peak or Mt Evans have a measuring station on the summit (nothing on Wunderground), or better yet, climate data?

The peaks of RMNP got a nice coating over the weekend, and my P&C is showing rain/snow mix for Monday.  Impressively, the GFS had this upcoming weekend's change nailed from quite long range.

 

[Mercurial]

Got our first coating of snow overnight, as well as a T of sleet yesterday afternoon.

[Chinook]

As I noted before, some heavier rain and snow has fallen in northwest Wyoming recently, as well as other sections of the Northwest (hopefully something reasonable for you, Mercurial.) According to the U.S. Drought Monitor, Montana has reduced its total drought by a few percent. Obviously, there's a long way to go in taking away the D4 drought.

The current upper-level trough is now near California and Nevada. This trough will send a cold front to the Rockies and Plains today and Friday. The system will be cool and wet for the Front Range area. The 500mb trough/low will be slow to move. The 7-day precip from the NWS WPC shows about 0.5" to 0.75" near Denver, 0.75" to 1.50" for the lower areas of Wyoming, and 2-5" for sections of the Plains states.

Sometimes I am still amazed by the warm bias of the new GFS, which as 102 for Yankton, South Dakota, but the NAM says only 95. Well, no doubt this will feel like mid-summer with high dew points there and into Minnesota.

[mayjawintastawm]

92 for a high today at DEN (another record), 75 at 10 PM. Mean temp for the date 74 (+12). Yup, sure feels like winter!

0.02" precip in the past 37 days.  Hopefully all this will change in the next couple days.

Interesting blog post last week on Weather5280 how it seems like seasons have shifted by a month in the past few years, with September more like August and May more like April. https://www.weather5280.com/blog/2017/09/14/the-september-snow-i-used-to-know/

[raindancewx]

I've seen research that suggests Spring snow is not really impacted by warming climates, because the oceans are still frigid into early May, since they reach their coldest temperatures in Mid-March. No coincidence that the ice extent/volume peaks in March too for our hemisphere. Fall snow is impacted though, because Summer heat in the oceans lingers and the ice takes a bit longer to recover.

Super late snowfalls also seem somewhat tied to solar activity, there are pretty massive differences in the historical frequency of a last measurable snow after early-mid April in Albuquerque over relatively long-periods of time. The NAO seems to go strongly negative sometime between Jan 15 & Apr 15, or even into mid-May when solar activity is low and the upper levels (above 6000 feet) are supposed to be colder with low solar activity. For whatever reason, the effect has a limited window here, on/after Apr 1 to on/after Apr 14, wth the peak at Apr 7-12.

Last Snow	Frequency of Last Snow in ABQ by Date (1 = Dec 20, 43 = Jan 31, etc): Significant in Early April
Sunspots July-Jun	Years	<=31	<=60	<=73	<=85	>=85	>=98	>=110	>=115	>=140
>=55	53	3.8%	15.1%	26.4%	50.9%	50.9%	32.1%	13.2%	9.4%	0.0%
<55	33	6.1%	18.2%	30.3%	42.4%	57.6%	45.5%	33.3%	30.3%	0.0%
P<=0.05?	y/n	no	no	no	no	no	no	0.02574	0.01278	no
								P<=0.05	104-117

 

[Chinook]

If global warming is going to be a critical factor in the future (it probably is) and if the solar constant (i.e. the flow of solar energy) is what ultimately warms the earth, then why don't we have some astronauts put out some 8000 mi wide sunglasses that cut down the solar constant by 1 or 2 W/m2 over the whole earth?

[raindancewx]

I mean you could do all kinds of cute things if we had the technology - move the Earth further from the sun, pump up cold waters from deep in the oceans, physically remove greenhouse gasses from the sky, add albedo, etc. Sometimes I think cities would cool if we just painted roads and roofs white at a fairly high percentage. I'm not really one of these people that thinks the sun will save / alter the climate in ways that offset any long-term warming trend - I just think it has big effects on the weather, especially when you go higher up in elevation and are fairly far away from oceans and their insulation. 

Personally, I don't care that much either way - it rains here more than it used to with the increased water vapor so long term we're getting more rain and snow overall and the rate of precip/evaporation seems pretty constant if you trend the Koppen Classification thing and factor in temps/moisture/and whether it falls during the high sun or low sun part of the year.

[Chinook]

Find the front.

[raindancewx]

Seeing rumors Agung might erupt - that thing was a VEI 5 eruption in early 1963. Coldest winter for ABQ in 120 years of records followed. Its about 8 degrees from the equator, so a big eruption would have some major impacts globally.