Mountain West Discussion

[snowfan789]

6 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I don't really care about Eastern CO, this isn't the "Denver thread" - that's the least mountainous area of Colorado when you get east of the front range. Western Colorado and Western New Mexico could use the amounts of precipitation depicted. It's been pretty average to date. I don't think its unreasonable to root for snow in SW CO and NW NM given how the drought monitor has looked in the past couple years. It could be five years until another relatively cold / average-wet pattern shows up again. I'd like to see that red area on the second map destroyed.

 

Okay then. The precip in the places that need it is great but this pattern could leave a fair amount of spots in the West  that are abnormally dry or worse mostly dry, including the CO spots I mentioned (I think more posters in this thread are from there than any other single location so it is of particular interest). In fact, Denver (DIA anyway) is on the threshold of a nearly unprecedented snow drought . And I still don’t see what is really going to change with the arrival of the cavalry you claim to have predicted as it largely seems poised to be more of the same (e.g., the San Juans have already been doing well lately, and the generally dry Front Range may stay that way).

[donsutherland1]

8 hours ago, snowfan789 said:

Snowiest month since 1969. Impressive.

Yesterday’s final snowfall was 6.1”. Seattle now has two 6” or greater snowstorms this winter and 20.2” total snowfall.

[raindancewx]

The thing with our region is that 1976-77 has actually been a strong analog in some ways for patterns and storm patterns since October, and that year Denver only had 17.3" through 2/11 so I don't find the 17.5" through 2/11 this year to be particularly shocking. I had 1976-77 as an analog in my October forecast for the cold season, I would have expected the analog blend to beat it, which is somewhat higher than 17.5", but I don't find the pattern that unusual really. If you look at Chicago, Boston, etc, the timing and magnitude of the super cold (1/22 ish) is pretty similar to January 1977 too. 

 

[snowfan789]

43 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

The thing with our region is that 1976-77 has actually been a strong analog in some ways for patterns and storm patterns since October, and that year Denver only had 17.3" through 2/11 so I don't find the 17.5" through 2/11 this year to be particularly shocking. I had 1976-77 as an analog in my October forecast for the cold season, I would have expected the analog blend to beat it, which is somewhat higher than 17.5", but I don't find the pattern that unusual really. If you look at Chicago, Boston, etc, the timing and magnitude of the super cold (1/22 ish) is pretty similar to January 1977 too. 

 

In fairness, at least in the somewhat higher western suburb where I reside near Denver, we’re probably only about 5” shy of average snowfall. It’s been an idiosyncratic winter so far in the Front Range. Much better a little higher up generally. Not sure how that compares to 76-77.

[mayjawintastawm]

4 hours ago, raindancewx said:

The thing with our region is that 1976-77 has actually been a strong analog in some ways for patterns and storm patterns since October, and that year Denver only had 17.3" through 2/11 so I don't find the 17.5" through 2/11 this year to be particularly shocking. I had 1976-77 as an analog in my October forecast for the cold season, I would have expected the analog blend to beat it, which is somewhat higher than 17.5", but I don't find the pattern that unusual really. If you look at Chicago, Boston, etc, the timing and magnitude of the super cold (1/22 ish) is pretty similar to January 1977 too. 

 

I grew up near Boston, and remember those late '70s winters well. 76-77 was followed by the once-in-a-lifetime 77-78. That plus a couple hurricanes were what really got me into weather. In fact I still have a small vial of snowmelt from the 2/6-8/78 blizzard in a box in the basement. If we got that here next year, I would be VERY happy. (VERY unlikely)

I'm guessing my yard has just shy of average-for-date snowfall this year too, around 25 inches. Not as bad as last year. And we do have March and April to go yet.

[Chinook]

In addition to the recent California, Washington, and Oregon snowy periods, here comes this. More snow for California, and possibly over 2 ft of snow in Colorado and over 3 ft of snow in Utah. NWS Salt Lake is has a winter storm watch for 8-18" with locally higher accumulations at Alta, Utah

 

 

 

[amarshall]

heading to Alta Monday. Anything on the horizon for next week?

[raindancewx]

It's so beautiful -

I don't know if I've ever seen a 90% chance of cold in that zone before actually.

Coldest winter in Albuquerque by mean high since at least 2012-13 is all but guaranteed at this point, and if February 14-28 has a high lower than 52.1F, this becomes the coldest winter by mean high since 2009-10. Last cold February in Albuquerque was in 2013 - so its definitely interesting to have mostly highs in the 40s/50s again instead of 50s/60s mostly. The MJO is forecast to be in phases 2/3 in early March by the ECMF, which can be very cold too. Over 60% of all days in March in New Mexico are cold when the MJO is in phase two.

If February verifies below the long-term average high, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb will all verify below average here, and I use long-term averages that are colder than 1981-2010.

[ChasingFlakes]

3 hours ago, raindancewx said:

It's so beautiful -

I don't know if I've ever seen a 90% chance of cold in that zone before actually.

Coldest winter in Albuquerque by mean high since at least 2012-13 is all but guaranteed at this point, and if February 14-28 has a high lower than 52.1F, this becomes the coldest winter by mean high since 2009-10. Last cold February in Albuquerque was in 2013 - so its definitely interesting to have mostly highs in the 40s/50s again instead of 50s/60s mostly. The MJO is forecast to be in phases 2/3 in early March by the ECMF, which can be very cold too. Over 60% of all days in March in New Mexico are cold when the MJO is in phase two.

If February verifies below the long-term average high, Oct, Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb will all verify below average here, and I use long-term averages that are colder than 1981-2010.

The inverse of the long range winter forecasts basically.

[Chinook]

16 hours ago, ChasingFlakes said:

The inverse of the long range winter forecasts basically.

This winter, we have had a nearly El Nino, neutral winter. We have had some positive PNA periods, but now it is strongly negative, with cold in the Pacific Northwest. Negative PNA is much more like a La Nina winter.

Regarding for next week at Alta, Utah, there is a possible low pressure development in Nevada and Utah in the cold air mass. Currently, the GFS has low amounts of snow for northern Utah, next Wednesday to Thursday.

We have had kind of a roller coaster of temperatures here. We had 2.6" of snow last week, with low temps of -2 to -10 in the area. We warmed up to 58-60 on Wednesday, with lows of only 30-35. On Thursday, the early morning temperatures were about 40-42, then we got to about 49-55 in the late morning. Then, we got a backdoor cold front, with temperatures dropping to 30 by 7PM with clouds. This morning, we had light snow near sunrise with a temperature of 20. Now it is 50 again and completely sunny.

[raindancewx]

17 hours ago, ChasingFlakes said:

The inverse of the long range winter forecasts basically.

It's weird, but I swear every late Winter / early Spring (Feb-Apr) after a major hurricane hits the Gulf Coast sees at least one extended period of cold in the West/Plains, or at least in the super warm years like 1933-34 or 2005-06 or 2017-18 you get the least intense heat in that period. I didn't have the West cold for February, but for winter I didn't really have the NW cold or warm, it looked pretty average to me, and the coolness in the SW is what I expected. So actually, Feb is sort of fixing the warmth in the NW previously toward my seasonal expectation even though I got the timing/concentration wrong.

The week 3-4 outlook also features a cold West look too, along with the 6-10 and 8-14. The Jamstec update continues to show a cold/wet pattern in Spring for NM/CO too. I actually don't think it will be that wet in most of Colorado in March, but it does look cold to me. I'm looking forward to seeing if we can somehow pull off a 12th drier than average March in a row in Albuquerque despite things looking pretty promising.

[Chinook]

Model forecasts have shown increased snowfall over southeast and eastern Colorado in the next 2-3 days. It looks like there will be 2 periods of snow that develop as an upper level trough develops at the CO/UT border. A cold air mass will move into place in Colorado on Sunday. I was thinking this would be 1-2 inches near Denver and relatively light snow for northern Colorado-- previous forecasts didn't really have much in the north.

[Chinook]

Thunder snow or thunder graupel?? Mayjawintastawm?

[raindancewx]

To me it's a bit too early to put out snow numbers for Albuquerque, really the Eastern half of NM, but this is what the local NWS has for the Mon-Tue storm. The Euro has two snow bands depicted, first one probably dies outside ABQ to the West, second makes it but faces the stout East wind...but the wind dies and it snows for like three hours, on and off. Question is whether that first band will make it. If it does, I think 2-5" is possible, otherwise, I'll probably go a coating to 2" for the city. Should be much clear tomorrow. These are potent little storms, so it should be cold enough for some kind of snow even in the city I think.

 

[Chinook]

NWS is predicting 6-10" for Pueblo and southeast Colorado, 6-10" northeast New Mexico plains, and 12-20" for the Raton Mesa and the Sangre de Cristo range, 12-24" for the San Juan range, 2-4" Denver metro and northwards.

[raindancewx]

I got a lot of crap from people in the East in Oct/Nov for saying 1994-95 was a decent analog for this winter but East of the Rockies it's been remarkably close. I was spot checking my analogs for winter against observations today, for 78/90 days of winter that are in the books. Outside of Montana, the Dakotas and the SE, I'd say this blend will probably end up within 2F of reality in most parts of the US. I definitely did not have February as warm as it has been in the South, the +5 to +15 readings are killing me there. The super cold in the Plains this month hurts too - both are +SOI December driven from what I can see.

DJF High (F) Verification (12/1-2/16)	1953	1976	1986	1994	1994	2006	Mean	Actual	Error
Atlanta	55.4	45.9	53.0	55.7	55.7	56.1	53.6	56.9	3.3
Albuquerque	49.8	46.4	47.2	52.5	52.5	44.9	48.9	47.9	-1.0
Amarillo	54.4	49.1	49.3	53.7	53.7	45.2	50.9	55.0	4.1
Billings	38.6	37.1	43.4	39.7	39.7	35.8	39.1	34.6	-4.5
Bismarck	27.0	21.1	34.2	22.8	22.8	26.7	25.8	23.1	-2.7
Boston	40.4	33.9	37.9	41.3	41.3	40.7	39.3	41.8	2.6
Denver	50.2	48.3	46.3	47.9	47.9	36.9	46.3	45.6	-0.6
El Paso	59.4	57.4	57.9	61.9	61.9	56.2	59.1	59.3	0.2
Jacksonville	67.3	59.2	65.1	65.4	65.4	68.2	65.1	68.4	3.3
Philadelphia	44.3	34.1	41.4	44.8	44.8	44.6	42.3	44.2	1.9
San Diego	67.1	70.6	66.1	64.1	64.1	64.3	66.1	65.9	-0.1
Seattle	44.9	49.1	48.4	49.3	49.3	45.9	47.8	48.0	0.2
St. Louis	46.6	33.5	42.1	41.3	41.3	42.0	41.1	43.2	2.1

[Chinook]

This storm may have completely fallen apart for the southeast plains of Colorado. The GFS has 0-3" for the Raton Mesa and northward to I-70.

[mayjawintastawm]

On 2/16/2019 at 1:18 PM, Chinook said:

Thunder snow or thunder graupel?? Mayjawintastawm?

 

I've been in FL the past 5 days. Came back to not much on the ground. Looks like thunder was recorded in a brief squall Saturday afternoon with 0.02" WE.

[snowfan789]

On 2/17/2019 at 6:26 PM, raindancewx said:

I got a lot of crap from people in the East in Oct/Nov for saying 1994-95 was a decent analog for this winter but East of the Rockies it's been remarkably close. I was spot checking my analogs for winter against observations today, for 78/90 days of winter that are in the books. Outside of Montana, the Dakotas and the SE, I'd say this blend will probably end up within 2F of reality in most parts of the US. I definitely did not have February as warm as it has been in the South, the +5 to +15 readings are killing me there. The super cold in the Plains this month hurts too - both are +SOI December driven from what I can see.

DJF High (F) Verification (12/1-2/16)	1953	1976	1986	1994	1994	2006	Mean	Actual	Error
Atlanta	55.4	45.9	53.0	55.7	55.7	56.1	53.6	56.9	3.3
Albuquerque	49.8	46.4	47.2	52.5	52.5	44.9	48.9	47.9	-1.0
Amarillo	54.4	49.1	49.3	53.7	53.7	45.2	50.9	55.0	4.1
Billings	38.6	37.1	43.4	39.7	39.7	35.8	39.1	34.6	-4.5
Bismarck	27.0	21.1	34.2	22.8	22.8	26.7	25.8	23.1	-2.7
Boston	40.4	33.9	37.9	41.3	41.3	40.7	39.3	41.8	2.6
Denver	50.2	48.3	46.3	47.9	47.9	36.9	46.3	45.6	-0.6
El Paso	59.4	57.4	57.9	61.9	61.9	56.2	59.1	59.3	0.2
Jacksonville	67.3	59.2	65.1	65.4	65.4	68.2	65.1	68.4	3.3
Philadelphia	44.3	34.1	41.4	44.8	44.8	44.6	42.3	44.2	1.9
San Diego	67.1	70.6	66.1	64.1	64.1	64.3	66.1	65.9	-0.1
Seattle	44.9	49.1	48.4	49.3	49.3	45.9	47.8	48.0	0.2
St. Louis	46.6	33.5	42.1	41.3	41.3	42.0	41.1	43.2	2.1

To your credit, your (unpopular at the time) winter forecast appears likely to turn out much better than those of a lot of veteran east-based posters who called for well above average snowfall in the northeastern coastal big cities, when in fact they’ll probably finish well below normal. Meanwhile, interestingly (I think), northern New England has had a very snowy winter in places. 

[snowfan789]

What do we need for a legitimately snowy pattern just east of the Rockies? Seriously. Trough in the West/negative PNA? Nope. The opposite? Nope. Not sure how it’s even realistically possible at this point when both sides of the coin seem to be yielding close to nada except for a few lucky spots.

[Chinook]

The Flagstaff AZ area had 11" to 36" of snow in recent snow reports.

[raindancewx]

People in LA are freaking out about some "snow" today.

 

[raindancewx]

I'm still researching it, but in periods of low solar activity, it does seem like bigger snow events are much rarer in certain areas of the US, regardless of ENSO, teleconnections, etc. 

Boston and Albuquerque don't have much in common climate-wise, (really...anything in common), but in El Nino Marches in both cities there is a pretty direct, and strong linear correlation to heavier snowfall if solar activity is high. I'd imagine the same is true in other places. Expecting big snow in Denver in the core of winter is a fairly big ask anyway, since March and November are better months. If you graph long-term trends in the US, March is warming fairly quickly in the West, and low solar activity favors less precipitation in the Southwest. On top of that, most of New Mexico and Arizona haven't had a wet March in over a decade and some of that prevents heavy snowfall from big storms from making it up the Front Range. So part of the issue is the top snowfall month in Denver has had a lot of things working against it.

My temperature and precipitation patterns since 7/1 are objectively very strong matches to years like 1998-99, 1974-75, and 2004-05, 1957-58, 1941-42, which all featured major storms and precipitation in the SW, all of which had incredible March precipitation in the SW. The SOI is down to -15.7 for February too. 

At this point I think you have to look seriously at 1962, 1970, 1970, 1970, 2012 as the blend for March nationally - it snowed in LA in 1962 like this year, and 1961 and 1969 had major landfall hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. Lots of huge snowfalls in MN and that area in early 1962. As a blend, those years take you from essentially a La Nina SOI to an El Nino SOI from Dec to Feb. If the SOI finishes at -15, I'd throw in 2004 or 1982 too, to lower the February SOI to the observed value.

[Chinook]

Today's 12z models generally agree that Denver will get 3-5" between this afternoon and tomorrow morning.

[snowfan789]

14 hours ago, raindancewx said:

I'm still researching it, but in periods of low solar activity, it does seem like bigger snow events are much rarer in certain areas of the US, regardless of ENSO, teleconnections, etc. 

Boston and Albuquerque don't have much in common climate-wise, (really...anything in common), but in El Nino Marches in both cities there is a pretty direct, and strong linear correlation to heavier snowfall if solar activity is high. I'd imagine the same is true in other places. Expecting big snow in Denver in the core of winter is a fairly big ask anyway, since March and November are better months. If you graph long-term trends in the US, March is warming fairly quickly in the West, and low solar activity favors less precipitation in the Southwest. On top of that, most of New Mexico and Arizona haven't had a wet March in over a decade and some of that prevents heavy snowfall from big storms from making it up the Front Range. So part of the issue is the top snowfall month in Denver has had a lot of things working against it.

My temperature and precipitation patterns since 7/1 are objectively very strong matches to years like 1998-99, 1974-75, and 2004-05, 1957-58, 1941-42, which all featured major storms and precipitation in the SW, all of which had incredible March precipitation in the SW. The SOI is down to -15.7 for February too. 

At this point I think you have to look seriously at 1962, 1970, 1970, 1970, 2012 as the blend for March nationally - it snowed in LA in 1962 like this year, and 1961 and 1969 had major landfall hurricanes on the Gulf Coast. Lots of huge snowfalls in MN and that area in early 1962. As a blend, those years take you from essentially a La Nina SOI to an El Nino SOI from Dec to Feb. If the SOI finishes at -15, I'd throw in 2004 or 1982 too, to lower the February SOI to the observed value.

Interesting thoughts. I don’t know if this has been your experience but your post reminded me that, at least on the far west side of Denver, we actually would be a little above normal for snow this year had a slightly too warm November precipitation event and a just barely cold enough January snow event come in a world where temps were 2-3 degrees lower. I fear that climate change is going to mean more and more wet events and fewer and fewer snowy ones as time progresses. With that said, the source of the persistent dryness in the Front Range (a few lucky spots like my house and Boulder aside) is more perplexing. Where have the big moist upslope storms gone? I’m not asking you specifically but do wonder. It’s been almost three years now since a solid stormy pattern affected areas just east of the mountains. Our snow has mostly come in fairly localized banded events for a while now. It’s better than nothing for sure but doesn’t provide the widespread precip we really (and increasingly) need.

[mayjawintastawm]

My sense in talking to a bunch of CO natives over the past few years is that the things that are missing are some big early and more late winter/spring upslope events they remember from when they were growing up. May-June used to be reliably greener, according to a PhD I know who is now in his 70s. The past few March/Aprils have not been real wet generally, Junes have been very hot, and Halloween, which was formerly an adventure in freezing one's butt off underneath one's costume, is a much milder affair than days of yore. Let's see what the next couple months bring... we could be pleasantly surprised.

Historically, it's interesting when you think about when the Front Range was first settled by those from the Eastern US about 100-130 years ago. Water booms and busts are normal, with busts more common. A wet few decades lured many to the area, then the Dust Bowl jarred everyone back to reality.

Of course, if you go to the New England board, you'd think they expect an epic blizzard every 10 days between Thanksgiving and Easter. It really was NOT like that in the 1970s other than a few memorable events. 

[mayjawintastawm]

I don't blame you for calling BS on me, but at 7:00 I measured 1" in the yard and at 8:24 I measured 5.3". Of course it's extremely fluffy, doubt it's more than 0.2" WE. This band is the heaviest I've seen in over a year! Chinook, I'm very hesitant to ask how much you (haven't) got tonight... shaft-o-rama.

[snowfan789]

2 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

I don't blame you for calling BS on me, but at 7:00 I measured 1" in the yard and at 8:24 I measured 5.3". Of course it's extremely fluffy, doubt it's more than 0.2" WE. This band is the heaviest I've seen in over a year! Chinook, I'm very hesitant to ask how much you (haven't) got tonight... shaft-o-rama.

Nice! Not quite so dramatic due west of town but still better than expected until recent model trends got me excited. About 3.5” currently (estimate).

[raindancewx]

We've had about 3.5 inches in Albuquerque at the airport as of 8 pm. The NW areas of NM, say Chama, and also SW Colorado, around Durango have been getting a lot of snow. It's the "SOI Calvary" for that zone - the area of the US with the worst drought conditions long term.

Timing of the storm today/yesterday that brought record daily snow to Flagstaff, snow to LA, and good snows to NM is consistent with the 15 pt SOI drop from 2/10 to 2/12. A storm will show up over the SW 10 days after a drop of that magnitude around 9/10 times from what I've seen researching the drops of that magnitude over the last 30 years.

I-40 was shut down by the NM/AZ border earlier today. I kept telling people at work it would snow. No one bought it since it was 55F at 2:30 pm...but of course we had three inches of snow on the ground by 7:30 pm. Storms tend to over-perform in New Mexico from 2/15-4/15 for snow if they have sufficient moisture.

The SOI drop from -30 to -43 on 2/17 to 2/19 should culminate in some kind of storm for the SW around 3/1 if the MJO going into phase two doesn't interfere destructively. 

[finnster]

18 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

My sense in talking to a bunch of CO natives over the past few years is that the things that are missing are some big early and more late winter/spring upslope events they remember from when they were growing up. May-June used to be reliably greener, according to a PhD I know who is now in his 70s. The past few March/Aprils have not been real wet generally, Junes have been very hot, and Halloween, which was formerly an adventure in freezing one's butt off underneath one's costume, is a much milder affair than days of yore. Let's see what the next couple months bring... we could be pleasantly surprised.

Historically, it's interesting when you think about when the Front Range was first settled by those from the Eastern US about 100-130 years ago. Water booms and busts are normal, with busts more common. A wet few decades lured many to the area, then the Dust Bowl jarred everyone back to reality.

Of course, if you go to the New England board, you'd think they expect an epic blizzard every 10 days between Thanksgiving and Easter. It really was NOT like that in the 1970s other than a few memorable events. 

Good post.  I haven't posted here for awhile - been staying away intentionally as hoping for any storms on the front range is pretty much an exercise in futility and disappointment.  I am not a native but have been here longer than most (55 years).  I can say from experience that the last 3 years, and the last 2 decades in general, have not been kind to the front range - to the point that my wife and I considering moving else where.  The things I've liked about the climate here are no more: heavy fall and spring snows (at least once in a while!), upslope storms, thunderstorms in summer afternoons, and more moderate temps in the summer (as noted above June is now just scorching hot - didn't used to be that way).  It seems that storm tracks are to the north of CO or south, and the front range remains in no-mans land.

My brother lives in Payson, AZ and called this morning saying they got 27" of snow.  I am very happy to see the SW get these storms they've truly needed it.  I know everything changes, nothing stays the same.  For whatever reason it just seems the CO front range is bearing the brunt of the bad things about climate change, and who knows if/when that will actually turn around.