raindancewx Posted March 24, 2019 Share Posted March 24, 2019 GFS has snow down to El Paso on 3/31, but somehow Albuquerque doesn't get any. Snow that far south this time of year is almost a guarantee of severe weather though if it were to happen. I still expect one to two snow events in the city before 4/30. Some indications that the MJO will wake up, and then cycle through the mid-Feb to mid-Mar part of the pattern soon, which was pretty stormy for this whole area. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tarheelwx Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 Greetings from the Southeastern Forum, specifically NC. I'm in CO this week and finish up in Colorado Springs Thursday and Friday, travelling back to Denver Friday night for a Saturday morning 6am flight. I've been following the models for the past week and it seems they have become focused on northern CO for the late week storm. What should I expect in terms of weather conditions for Friday through Saturday early morning? I'd love to experience a good front range early spring snowstorm. Tarheelwx Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 31 minutes ago, tarheelwx said: Greetings from the Southeastern Forum, specifically NC. I'm in CO this week and finish up in Colorado Springs Thursday and Friday, travelling back to Denver Friday night for a Saturday morning 6am flight. I've been following the models for the past week and it seems they have become focused on northern CO for the late week storm. What should I expect in terms of weather conditions for Friday through Saturday early morning? I'd love to experience a good front range early spring snowstorm. Tarheelwx It looks fairly meh at this point. Maybe the best bet would be to head up to RMNP on Friday. That might be your best shot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tarheelwx Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 Thanks. Agree. The storm appears to be fading. I’ve got to be in Colorado Springs Thursday afternoon until around 5 on Friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted March 25, 2019 Share Posted March 25, 2019 30 minutes ago, tarheelwx said: Thanks. Agree. The storm appears to be fading. I’ve got to be in Colorado Springs Thursday afternoon until around 5 on Friday. Then that wouldn't work for you as RMNP is quite a drive from COS. It's all about the upslope, so keep your eye on it...you never know. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted March 26, 2019 Author Share Posted March 26, 2019 Denver will surely get a trace to 11" of snow. Well, that's ensembles for you. Our area will definitely get rain on Friday, with almost 100% chance of a changeover to snow. It's quite possible that Fort Collins will have 2.40" of precipitation by the end of the month, which is above normal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Esasky Posted March 27, 2019 Share Posted March 27, 2019 Sorry for another intrusion from a SE forum member. Going to Grand Targhee next week and want to know if there's a place the group here would recommend looking for the best forecast for the mountain itself. As one would expect, I'm seeing wildly different forecasts for Mon-Thurs of next week. I expect conditions to be great, but just curious that their website is showing 46/29 for Monday 4/1 while their app shows 34/29 and snow. Could be as simple as one is for the base and one for the summit, but hoping someone here has figured that out for this resort before. Thanks. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted March 27, 2019 Author Share Posted March 27, 2019 Just looked up Grand Targhee Resort. It is at Alta, Wyoming. Wow, did they just copy the name from Alta, Utah, famous ski town?? Anyway, if you check the NWS point & click forecast, and look under the map, it will tell you the (averaged) altitude of the green box on the map. The NWS point & click forecasts account for elevation. You might want to check this web site http://models.weatherbell.com/wpc/wpc_snow.php for the NWS approximate (72-hr) snowfall forecast, which also accounts for elevation. As far as different forecast apps are concerned, I would say the apps probably take GFS runs (or other models) and do some extra calculating of some type depending on app. Who knows how they factor in elevation change? Elevations in the West are very important. 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nick Esasky Posted March 28, 2019 Share Posted March 28, 2019 15 hours ago, Chinook said: Just looked up Grand Targhee Resort. It is at Alta, Wyoming. Wow, did they just copy the name from Alta, Utah, famous ski town?? Anyway, if you check the NWS point & click forecast, and look under the map, it will tell you the (averaged) altitude of the green box on the map. The NWS point & click forecasts account for elevation. You might want to check this web site http://models.weatherbell.com/wpc/wpc_snow.php for the NWS approximate (72-hr) snowfall forecast, which also accounts for elevation. As far as different forecast apps are concerned, I would say the apps probably take GFS runs (or other models) and do some extra calculating of some type depending on app. Who knows how they factor in elevation change? Elevations in the West are very important. Thanks for the response and the link. Yes, I assume the variations are driven by elevation change. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vman722 Posted March 28, 2019 Share Posted March 28, 2019 18 hours ago, Nick Esasky said: Sorry for another intrusion from a SE forum member. Going to Grand Targhee next week and want to know if there's a place the group here would recommend looking for the best forecast for the mountain itself. As one would expect, I'm seeing wildly different forecasts for Mon-Thurs of next week. I expect conditions to be great, but just curious that their website is showing 46/29 for Monday 4/1 while their app shows 34/29 and snow. Could be as simple as one is for the base and one for the summit, but hoping someone here has figured that out for this resort before. Thanks. https://opensnow.com/dailysnow/grandtarghee https://opensnow.com/location/grandtarghee These should help you out. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted March 30, 2019 Author Share Posted March 30, 2019 Rain changed over to wet snow here. We had around 0.1"-0.15" of rain/drizzle since midnight Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted March 30, 2019 Share Posted March 30, 2019 Pleasantly surprised at this point. Around 3 inches so far, which is what I had expected in total by Saturday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
snowfan789 Posted March 30, 2019 Share Posted March 30, 2019 39 minutes ago, ValpoVike said: Pleasantly surprised at this point. Around 3 inches so far, which is what I had expected in total by Saturday. Ditto just west of Denver. Not much accumulation to speak of yet (.5” maybe) but it’s coming down harder than expected and, at the moment, subject to change, the radar looks encouraging. Some short term models like the HRRR are far less encouraging but don’t seem aligned with what’s actually happening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrgjeff Posted April 1, 2019 Share Posted April 1, 2019 We were in Park City last week. Nice to see snow Sunday and Friday mornings. West NWS offices (California, Utah, Colorado, probably others) have their own snow models. Also thickness rules are more liberal than back East. Generally trust the NWS. Apps are awful. Phones still have browsers for mobile.weather.gov to get forecasts. Remember ski resorts inflate snow forecasts, lol. Thursday night was interesting in Utah. Models kept taking away my late week snow until about 36 hours out. All of a sudden, a little comma head was forecast to roll through northern Utah. Regrettably we had to fly home Friday so missed the new powder. Drive to the airport was interesting thru moderate snow, yuge phat flakes, but UDOT kept I-80 mainly just wet. Thank you! Why did I settle for East trash snow all these years? Learned out West. Daughter got her ski legs out West. Pet Shop Boys sing it well! Go West!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 9 hours ago, nrgjeff said: Why did I settle for East trash snow all these years? Because if you can ski well in the East (bulletproof ice, rain with trash bags for apparel, "packed powder"= just about anything) and put up with the crowds, you will forever enjoy yourself out West even on a day the locals would consider crap. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted April 2, 2019 Share Posted April 2, 2019 March largely delivered for the West - pretty happy with that. Ski Taos still has a 90 inch base as an example. I took a few days to hit all the mountains around the state that were still open and got a lot of sledding in too. Was a bit disappointed last night that the snow only mixed in with rain above freezing, but still nice to that occurring down to the valleys on 3/31. A lot of our ski resorts saw 50-100 inches in March, some more. Snow pack has been great. My "Raindance Rule" that when Aug+Oct are wet as a unit, NM gets a lot of moisture in March, worked very well, and it was the first time since 2006-07 Aug/Oct period was wet, and it worked - March was wet. Coincided nicely with our wettest March in NM since 2005. These images are for Albuquerque. Long-term averages are 2.3" for rain in Aug+Oct, and 0.5" for March precipitation. It's very rare historically to get a big March here without a lot of rain, nearing 3" or higher, in Aug+Oct. Next goal will be a cold March, which last happened in NM in 2010. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 5, 2019 Author Share Posted April 5, 2019 Several recent model runs of the GFS/Canadian/Euro show show for the Rockies and Plains on Apr. 9-10 and also approximately Apr. 13th. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted April 5, 2019 Share Posted April 5, 2019 I'm expecting the second half of April to be pretty active for high terrain blizzards and severe weather. The SOI spiked to very positive numbers in recent days, but the Euro depicts a reversal to negative positioning early next week. A rapid drop is fairly likely, and should put a big storm in the SW somewhere, probably after 4/18 but before 4/22. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nrgjeff Posted April 7, 2019 Share Posted April 7, 2019 I hope you're right, also for storm chasing purposes. I tend to agree. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 8, 2019 Author Share Posted April 8, 2019 The Euro, 12z GFS, and 18z NAM have some accumulating snow for Denver. The models have shifted back to this, after several runs showed mainly downsloping/ low precipitation/ low rainfall here. Most model runs have continued to have some accumulating snow amounts for the northeastern area of Colorado. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 9, 2019 Author Share Posted April 9, 2019 Well, should we root for the GFS, or should we root for some rain, which would be less of a mess? I don't know. Water is good. The grass is still really brown from winter. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted April 10, 2019 Share Posted April 10, 2019 On 4/5/2019 at 5:46 PM, raindancewx said: I'm expecting the second half of April to be pretty active for high terrain blizzards and severe weather. The SOI spiked to very positive numbers in recent days, but the Euro depicts a reversal to negative positioning early next week. A rapid drop is fairly likely, and should put a big storm in the SW somewhere, probably after 4/18 but before 4/22. Date Tahiti (hPa) Darwin (hPa) Daily Contribution 30 day Av. SOI 90 day Av. SOI 10 Apr 2019 1012.52 1010.15 -0.15 -1.13 -5.38 9 Apr 2019 1013.55 1008.80 17.01 -1.68 -5.46 8 Apr 2019 1013.87 1008.10 24.37 -2.65 -5.67 7 Apr 2019 1013.79 1009.80 11.53 -3.68 -5.94 6 Apr 2019 1014.01 1009.70 13.84 -4.09 -6.12 5 Apr 2019 1013.83 1008.20 23.36 -4.81 -6.37 Blizzard of 1993 was preceded by a 25 point drop in one or two days in early March 1993, can't remember which. A 24.5 drop in two days would imply a big storm in the SW around 4/20 as I mentioned above - we'll see. Might be something smaller around 4/17 too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 10, 2019 Author Share Posted April 10, 2019 We are starting to get wet snow here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 10, 2019 Author Share Posted April 10, 2019 Denver... too warm for snow? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted April 10, 2019 Share Posted April 10, 2019 Still mixed light precip in Aurora. Temps seem about the same all around the region. I wonder if it's an intensity/lift problem. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 10, 2019 Author Share Posted April 10, 2019 Snow is coming down very fast. It has been sticking to the trees a lot, and now the wind is picking up to maybe 15-20mph in the city areas. Perhaps it won't stick to the trees with the wind getting stronger. Maybe the trees will fall over! As of yet, just a few plants and trees have developed small leaves. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 11, 2019 Author Share Posted April 11, 2019 We have about 6" of snow. The winds have still been 15-20mph. It's not a blizzard-- there are not even gale-force wind gusts near here. Greeley and Cheyenne have wind gusts to 30-31 mph as shown on the station plots, so that is pretty windy there. The top layer of the snow is kind of fluffy. The bottom is more compact. This afternoon, heavy snow was consistent near I-25, and at Fort Collins and Loveland Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 11, 2019 Author Share Posted April 11, 2019 This is nuts. There are 11" snow reports near me. I didn't measure a snow depth of 11", but a couple of my measurements were 8". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted April 11, 2019 Share Posted April 11, 2019 How about that! FC finally overperforms. We got about 4.5" as a final, with at least an inch coming in the early morning hours. Typical for the Metro area. Of course, DIA was once again a low outlier. Weird. I assume airport sites measure on a board, like the rest of us- or not? Could it just be that it blows away from the exposure? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted April 12, 2019 Author Share Posted April 12, 2019 We had a high temp of 76 on Tuesday, with a sunset like this: and then we had this and 22 degrees, 24 hours later 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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