Jump to content
  • Member Statistics

    17,598
    Total Members
    7,904
    Most Online
    PublicWorks143
    Newest Member
    PublicWorks143
    Joined

Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

Recommended Posts

  • Replies 216
  • Created
  • Last Reply

Yesterday, I drove about 1 mi from my place of Loveland to see if I could get a good picture to the south.  (thunder/hail) then I got some big splatty drops. Then I ran back to my car. Then I got this picture about 1/2 or 1 hour later, of a hailstorm that tracked into Loveland and then went southeast.

ypcM6ia.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Chinook, I had the pleasure of spending the past week at Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.  First time in Colorado since 1989.  Did not go through Fort Collins though.  Had great weather to drive Trail Ridge Road to lookouts with clear blue skies.  Glad I wasn't in Colorado Springs for that massive hailstorm though.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

13 hours ago, Indystorm said:

Chinook, I had the pleasure of spending the past week at Estes Park and Rocky Mountain National Park.  First time in Colorado since 1989.  Did not go through Fort Collins though.  Had great weather to drive Trail Ridge Road to lookouts with clear blue skies.  Glad I wasn't in Colorado Springs for that massive hailstorm though.

Good thing you aren't here this week.  I went up trail ridge road yesterday and visibility was not too great as we have a ton of California smoke...

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I'm sad to hear that W. Colorado and Utah are remaining in drought.  Grand Junction had 0.08" of rain in July (average is 0.61").  Around here, we had some decent rains in Loveland on Tuesday, with trace-0.20" in Fort Collins also. There were rain showers some of the city and foothill areas on Tuesday. These past 2 or 3 days have continued to have moderate to high smoke (vertically integrated smoke, if you look at HRRR-smoke model) My view of the Mummy Range and Long's Peak has been blocked since yesterday. The peaks seem to have disappeared.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

One of these years we'll get an east-based El Nino that isn't super strong, and I think a lot of the West will simultaneously recover for water storage and water tables. 2016-17 wasn't half bad, just warm here, so a lot of it evaporated, but it was amazing seeing how quickly the water came in went in the past 18 months. The east-based events seem to exert more control on precip patterns in UT/CO than the Modoki Enso events.

My winter last year was among the all-time hot/dry combo winters. The winters that follow those are kind of legendary, and the Summers in those years have been somewhat similar to this year, fairly warm, but also pretty wet. It's 1934, 1976, 1986, 1994, 2006 - those are the years after the all-time terrible winters out here for both heat and precip. The SOI blend for those five years is -14 or something in August, which is kind of what this August looks like. The big -SOI in August is usually a decent indicator for major moisture in Feb/Mar in the following March in the SW.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Monday: mid 70's with no clouds. It would have been nice, but the smoke was so thick that the visibility was 2-3 miles. There was a smell of smoke in the air. Trace of rain, Monday night. The air quality index showed "unhealthy" values.

Tuesday, high of 71 and cloudy. Smoke was still here, with visibility 4-8 miles, with no smell of smoke. Trace to 0.01" of rain.

Wednesday, mid 70's again. We had partly sunny conditions. At 7:30 PM, Long's Peak was (finally) visible to me without haze. 20-40 mile visibility. There were some rain showers over the mountains at times. 

Weather models overestimated rainfall here. Precipitation since Sunday has been very weak here, but 0.3" to 0.5" in some areas

5mOSnVx.png

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I can't find any data to support it...maybe the major cold push in the Northern Rockies? But I kind of think we get some snow here, even in the valleys this year in October. Happened in 2002 & 2009 even in the city.

My tentative winter analogs (1934-35, 1976-77, 1986-87, 1994-95, 1994-95, 2006-07) have near identical rains in Albuquerque to observed rains this Summer, except that the rains are happening 2-3 weeks earlier than in the mean of the data.

I am getting sick of how August always seems to fail here for major rains. You can get 3-4 inches of rain in August here, but we haven't had a meaningfully wet August since 2006. Wettest August since 2006 is 1.62", barely above average (<+10%). It is especially annoying since August + October rainfall here is a strong indicator for March snows, and low is bad. GFS has like 0.2" or something for the rest of the month, could realistically still finish August under an inch yet again if we don't get walloped tomorrow or during the weekend.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Friday/ Saturday. We have had some upper 80's to 90 on these days. Friday, the visibility was very poor again. My estimate is that the visibility was 4-5 miles on Friday, perhaps improving towards evening. Saturday, the visibility improved greatly to a fairly normal 20-40 miles. Here is my pic of the peak.

mMVdpgX.jpg

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Local history and Sept 1-4 observations here suggest we're at a 70%+ chance September will be colder than average (1931-2017 basis) at least for high temperatures. I think this will be my first cold month on that basis since...August 2017. I really hate east-based La Ninas.

I have this document called "controls" that looks at future outcomes after unusual conditions in a month. Cold September highs (2F or more below the 1951-2010 average) are associated with: 

- Cold January highs (2F or more below average)

- Snowy February (>=3" in Albuquerque, average is 1.9")

Those are the main effects. Cold DJF is more likely, as is >=3" in January. Also, other than El Nino, a cold September is the best early indicator of two months in Oct-May with over 3" of snow, and >=6 inches of snow in February to May.

Rainy/cold July is associated with heavy snow in December, and December as the snowiest month. July was rainy, but not cold. I'm expecting a slightly colder than normal and slightly wetter than normal winter here at this point, with around a foot of snow (+25%) from Oct-May. We'll see.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

I know- we had quite the time 1-4 AM with heavy rain that sounded like wind it was so heavy. Of course we're in a massive COCORAHS hole SE of town (I would join, but would be too unreliable due to time constraints). But pretty sure we had over an inch. The dog shook the whole bed having a nervous breakdown. I am tired today.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

With September 1/5 over now, my mean high is 80.3F - that is 4th coldest here since 1931, behind only 1938, 1961, and 2006. The 1931-2017 mean high for Sep 1-6 here is 87.0F - so 6.7F below normal. The 30-year mean is lower, as the 1950s (warm AMO & high solar) had some absurdly hot Septembers, as did the late 1970s here.

ABQ  Sept 1-6 Mean Hi
1 9/6/1938 75.0
2 9/6/1961 76.5
3 9/6/2006 76.7
4 9/6/1988 80.8
- 9/6/1950 80.8
6 9/6/1975 81.2
7 9/6/2004 81.3
8 9/6/1972 81.5
9 9/6/1966 81.7
10 9/6/1977 81.8
11 9/6/1999 82.2
- 9/6/1935 82.2
13 9/6/2005 82.8
- 9/6/1970 82.8
15 9/6/1987 83.0
- 9/6/1965 83.0
17 9/6/1967 83.3
- 9/6/1963 83.3
19 9/6/1968 84.0
20 9/6/1942 84.2
21 9/6/2007 84.3
22 9/6/2003 84.5
23 9/6/2008 84.7
- 9/6/1994 84.7
25 9/6/1985 84.8
26 9/6/1981 85.0
- 9/6/1940 85.0
28 9/6/1984 85.2
29 9/6/2015 85.5
- 9/6/1976 85.5
31 9/6/1986 85.7
32 9/6/1991 86.0
33 9/6/1974 86.3
34 9/6/1996 86.5
- 9/6/1944 86.5
36 9/6/2009 86.7
- 9/6/1969 86.7
- 9/6/1934 86.7
39 9/6/1997 86.8
- 9/6/1993 86.8
- 9/6/1990 86.8
- 9/6/1941 86.8
- 9/6/1932 86.8
44 9/6/1992 87.2
- 9/6/1962 87.2
- 9/6/1957 87.2
47 9/6/1971 87.3
48 9/6/2011 87.5
- 9/6/1978 87.5
50 9/6/2016 87.7
- 9/6/1936 87.7
52 9/6/1989 87.8
53 9/6/1998 88.0
- 9/6/1973 88.0
- 9/6/1931 88.0
56 9/6/1953 88.3
- 9/6/1943 88.3
58 9/6/1980 88.7
- 9/6/1946 88.7
60 9/6/2001 89.0
61 9/6/1964 89.2
62 9/6/2014 89.5
- 9/6/1954 89.5
- 9/6/1937 89.5
65 9/6/2010 89.7
- 9/6/2002 89.7
- 9/6/1949 89.7
68 9/6/2017 90.0
69 9/6/1960 90.2
70 9/6/2000 90.3
- 9/6/1958 90.3
72 9/6/2013 90.5
73 9/6/1956 90.7
- 9/6/1933 90.7
75 9/6/1955 91.0
76 9/6/1947 92.3
77 9/6/1952 92.5
78 9/6/1939 92.7
79 9/6/1982 92.8
- 9/6/1959 92.8
81 9/6/2012 93.0
- 9/6/1945 93.0
83 9/6/1951 93.5
84 9/6/1995 93.7
85 9/6/1948 95.2
86 9/6/1983 97.0
- 9/6/1979 97.0
  Mean Hi 87.0
Link to comment
Share on other sites

We had a breezy hot, dry day today with winds out of the south and west. A random rain shower hit Loveland for a few minutes. Otherwise, it was a beautiful partly cloudy day, with maybe a couple of areas of virga/ rain showers. I don't even know how the rain happened, given the dew point around Denver was near 32 degrees. I wish there would be anything interesting. The forecast is just repeated 90 and sunny.
Fort Collins-Loveland Airport: 94
Greeley 96
Broomfield-Jeffco: 86
Front Range Airport: 93
KDEN Denver 93 degrees
KAPA- Arapahoe County- Centennial 89 degrees
KBKF - Denver Buckley AFB 90 degrees

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

We hit 90F here for like 10 minutes today, first 90F high since 8/31. My Fall Outlook had Sept-Nov highs around 5F colder than last year, for Sept 1-10 (1/9 of Fall) we are 6.5F colder than last year, so far so good. September has warmed up some in the past few days, but month to date we remain around 1F or 1.5F below normal, more for just highs. I'm expecting we steal a cold high day at some point next week if a tropical disturbance or remnants make it to bottom of RGV and get pulled northward.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/11/2018 at 6:33 PM, Chinook said:

We had a breezy hot, dry day today with winds out of the south and west. A random rain shower hit Loveland for a few minutes. Otherwise, it was a beautiful partly cloudy day, with maybe a couple of areas of virga/ rain showers. I don't even know how the rain happened, given the dew point around Denver was near 32 degrees. I wish there would be anything interesting. The forecast is just repeated 90 and sunny.
Fort Collins-Loveland Airport: 94
Greeley 96
Broomfield-Jeffco: 86
Front Range Airport: 93
KDEN Denver 93 degrees
KAPA- Arapahoe County- Centennial 89 degrees
KBKF - Denver Buckley AFB 90 degrees

Yeah I'm definitely with you.  Wish there would be SOMETHING interesting in the weather happening around here, other than the usual high pressure systems, dryness and high temperature records.  This has been a bad year overall - especially in western CO.  I'm in the foothills NW of Fort Collins and we're starting to have the drought conditions here that the mountains and west have had for several months.  My 'unofficial' count where I am is 49 days without any significant precip (> .25").  I'm real close to a CSU weather station so I have good data.  The precip has been spotty and I know other locations have fared better.  With the hot, dry, windy weather of this week it has reached a tipping point as there are more fires popping up every day (as you'd expect with this type of pattern).

The culprit seems to be a massive high pressure system(s) hanging on in the western US - don't know why these systems keep forming but it unless/until the situation changes we'll keep getting what we've been getting.  This time of year you hear a lot of people lamenting the onset of fall and chillier weather.  I'm the opposite - I've had enough of summer and am looking forward to fall weather.  Given the current pattern (90 degree temps all week) this does not even seem plausible for some time.  It's going to take something pretty major to shake up this entrenched pattern.

Thanks for letting me vent this morning. :fulltilt:
 

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 9/11/2018 at 8:46 PM, raindancewx said:

We hit 90F here for like 10 minutes today, first 90F high since 8/31. My Fall Outlook had Sept-Nov highs around 5F colder than last year, for Sept 1-10 (1/9 of Fall) we are 6.5F colder than last year, so far so good. September has warmed up some in the past few days, but month to date we remain around 1F or 1.5F below normal, more for just highs. I'm expecting we steal a cold high day at some point next week if a tropical disturbance or remnants make it to bottom of RGV and get pulled northward.

Raindance - good to hear, it seems that NM is faring much better than most of CO this year....

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...