Mountain West Discussion

[donsutherland1]

4 hours ago, MidlothianWX said:

Snow has completely finished here in Boulder. I measure 21" IMBY but the official COOP station right up the road appears to have at least 22" - we'll have to wait for their final report. Looks like the Euro was pretty much dead on with QPF, down to the hundredth of an inch.

This is a top 5 or 6 storm for Boulder since the modern COOP station went up in 1990. This is also likely to be a borderline top 10 event all-time. What a fun ride it was - probably the 2nd most I've ever seen IMBY.

@donsutherland1 I thought I would tag you, as I know you pop in here from time to time. Didn't want you to miss this!

Many thanks for tagging me. It was an exciting event for Colorado and it will be interesting to see the storm as it continues to track eastward.

[Chinook]

The upcoming western US storm will hit New Mexico, and western Colorado. There is more uncertainty regarding the impacts in the northern Plains, Wyoming, and Montana mountains. Things are always complicated in New Mexico. What's not too hard to understand is the San Juan Mountain range (CO) getting heavy snow with southwest flow aloft. 

If you are interested, there is a 975mb low moving onshore near Eureka CA/ Southwest Oregon, with some wind gusts of 50-60mph close to the coast and snow starting to hit mountainous areas.

[raindancewx]

I went with 0-3" <5200 feet, 2-5" 5200-5600 feet, and 3-7" 5600-6100 feet in Albuquerque. It's a wet bulb storm for us in the city, we'll begin the day with temps in the low 20s or high teens (thanks for the cold dry air), before warming to the high 30s or low 40s, then the rain starts, but the sunsets, the dew point rises, but it cools the air as the moisture evaporates. Window for Albuquerque is likely 8 pm to 4 am for accumulating snow if you buy the 3-km NAM. Higher areas will start out earlier and last longer. But it's a 16 hour precip event before the next storm, and something lie 8-12 hours of it should be snow for the city. But, it is complicated here. I generally like this setup though, we had very low dew points in Feb 2015 at the surface, and then subtropical moisture moved on top of it. The subtropical warmth won, eventually, but first we had 6-12 in the city, 2/26-2/28. It's not super different from this setup.

[Chinook]

Every run of the models seemed to get better and better for this area. There were a couple of weird model runs, but not too many. Inaccurate predictions of snow sometimes just happen, but this time, the NWS Watches/Warnings were pretty decent.

The first banding started on the east side of the Rockies at about 12PM - 2PM on Monday. Then I started to notice snow at 2PM. It was steady snow. I noticed 6" or more by 8PM, 10 to 11" by 10:30PM. At 9:30 PM, the radar was starting to fill in for Denver. Some snow banding was just north of Denver started in after 6:00PM, though. I measured 16.0 - 16.5" by Tuesday morning.

Not many storms have produced 1" per hour for so many hours. Many storms around here seem to be 5-6" in several hours, usually a night time. Some storms last 9 hours, with a band that is north of a cold front. Not a lot of storms have stronger 700mb easterly winds like this one. It's weird though, because this wasn't much of a closed circulation at 500mb, but did have that closed circulation at 700mb. I don't know how this one pulled in the Pacific moisture just right. 

There has not been a 12" storm in Fort Collins since February 2nd, 2016, if I remember correctly.

 

watches, warnings, advisories

[raindancewx]

I had 3.5" with the New Mexico storm by 10:50 pm on 11/27 in my backyard, about 10-miles due north of the airport site, at the same elevation.

As of 1:30 am on 11/28, I'm up to 5.0". Airport in Albuquerque has had 0.19" fall as snow with temperatures between 28-32F the entire time. I think they're probably around 2.3" so far.

The cold dry air has really held it's own so far. We went from 37F / 14F dew point to 32F / 25F dew point in an hour flat from 6 pm to 7 pm. 

 

[smokeybandit]

Things look pretty boring for NE Colorado the next couple weeks

[Chinook]

These areas of snowfall developed tonight (8:16PM). It looks kind of cool on radar. I have a small snow accumulation.

[Chinook]

Loops of Tuesday's snowstorm

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Nov_26_2019_500mb_loop.html

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Nov_26_2019_850mb_loop.html

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Nov_26_2019_GFS_loop.html

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Nov_26_2019_radar_loop.html

http://www.greatlakes.salsite.com/Nov_26_2019_satellite_loop.html

[Chinook]

A large area of the Dakotas, Minnesota, and Wisconsin got more than 12" of snow yesterday and today. Some western areas had blizzard conditions. Cheyenne and areas near me had a ground blizzard. Winds gusted to 60-70mph at Cheyenne, Wellington CO, the Boulder foothills, the open plains of Colorado, and western Nebraska This created ground blizzards. Around here, we had winds to 20 mph winds gusting up to 42mph yesterday, which created snow drifts that made new ice on the sidewalks and streets.

 

[raindancewx]

My basic idea for December for New Mexico & Colorado & West Texas is that the storminess of November dies off somewhat, but we still finish wetter than average, with temperatures probably not that far from average either way, despite impressive cold at times later in the month.

In recent El Ninos, the US temperature pattern for Oct 16-Oct 31 has tended to become the December temperature pattern nationally, but shifted somewhat East. We had near to record cold in that period this year. My objective high temperature & precipitation matches for the July-November period include six very cold Decembers locally, including the record and near record cold of 1943, 1952, 1953, 1992. Only 1939 was warmer than normal, and that was the weakest of the ten objective matches.

Objective matches for the subsurface in the Tropical Pacific, years with a big warm up Sept to Oct, and then a cool off in Oct to Nov also support somewhat cold temps in the SW. Additionally, if you blend all years when Nino 4 is above 29.3C (there aren't too many of them) in Fall/Dec, the composite looks a lot like the map below. The top SOI matches for Sept-Nov also look like the map below. Years with positive NAO readings in December. 

I do expect the pattern in early November to repeat at some point later in the winter - probably January, but its worth remembering most of the severe cold was destroyed pretty quickly.

It's obviously amplified, but the very warm coast/colder middle thing repeated last Nov 1-15 in January. It's just it came in much more severely, even though it was similar spatially.

[Chinook]

 % of normal snow water equivalent is now about 130% for South Platte basin, other areas as shown:

[raindancewx]

I should say, I don't actually expect the tropical forcing map I posted to verify for December - it's just what you get from blending the years that match. I think my blend of 1953 (x2), 1983 (x2), 1992, 1995, 2009 (x3), 2018 should hold fairly well. November behaved, with the warm West look, and a colder East. I did warm up the raw blend 2F because my blend is too cold in Nino 4 - around 28.6C and it's close to a degree above that.

Anyway, snow pack is good here too:

PDO still looks somewhat negative to me with the warmth east of Japan and NOT by Alaska & Canada on the immediate coast.

SOI has been going positive past couple days - have to watch that. First time we've had two positive days above +4 in six weeks I think.

[Chinook]

At the current time, the GFS and Euro have a lot of agreement on this snow feature in Colorado and Kansas

[raindancewx]

That system has SOI support - I think it may drift south from where it is depicted currently by 12/15 though. But you had a big SOI drop 12/3-12/5. So there should be something in the "SW domain" - I  look for a low between 30-37N, 103-118W after those big drops.

Snow pack / precip generally has been very low in Washington and SW Canada - part of me thinks that will snap hard the other way later, probably sometime in Feb-Apr if it happens.

[Chinook]

Our storm (Sunday to Monday) may be making a bit of a comeback, possibly for southern Colorado and northern New Mexico. The GFS and Euro have varied with this feature. I thought it might disappear. The Canadian was pretty insane with the snow, but it's not as accurate.

[Chinook]

The Euro and Canadian show some light snow for northern Colorado Saturday to Sunday. Most models have some (heavy) snow for Colorado Springs out of the combination of events (into Monday.)

[Chinook]

I think this is a really snowy run of the GFS, compared to recent runs. Nevertheless, there could be greater snow amounts for the mountains, and possibly Denver and Colorado Springs,. Sometime soon, we'll see if the models are getting a better handle on the Midwest/Plains part of this snowy system.

Northern mountains of Colorado above 9000 ft:

Quote

...WINTER STORM WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM THURSDAY AFTERNOON THROUGH LATE SATURDAY NIGHT...

* WHAT...Heavy snow possible. Total snow accumulations of 10 to 19 inches possible. Winds could gust
 as high as 60 mph.

---other text---

Blowing snow and near white out conditions are also possible across the higher mountain passes Friday morning
when winds may gust over 70 mph. In total, 1-2 feet with isolated amounts approaching 3 feet are possible
during the three day period. 

[raindancewx]

This setup reminds me more of a January pattern, at least from what I've seen over the past 10 years or so.

[Chinook]

We are getting a little snow in Larimer and Weld Counties.

[raindancewx]

Weird thing to say, but more optimistic for January than December overall, with the caveat that the 12/26-12/30 period is the most likely major storm period for NM. Models have been showing something 12/24-12/25 for New Mexico. I actually buy it - there is SOI support (10+ point drop w/in two days, 10 days out) for a major storm in that window, and the drops are more substantial than the small drops for 12/15 and 12/20. The late November storms had a 20 pt drop in ONE day, these are 10-15 point drops in two days, so doesn't look as potent as the late November stuff.

[snowfan789]

10 hours ago, raindancewx said:

Weird thing to say, but more optimistic for January than December overall, with the caveat that the 12/26-12/30 period is the most likely major storm period for NM. Models have been showing something 12/24-12/25 for New Mexico. I actually buy it - there is SOI support (10+ point drop w/in two days, 10 days out) for a major storm in that window, and the drops are more substantial than the small drops for 12/15 and 12/20. The late November storms had a 20 pt drop in ONE day, these are 10-15 point drops in two days, so doesn't look as potent as the late November stuff.

December has so far been terrible east of the Rockies. I have seen 2018-19 thrown around as an analog for this winter season, with persuasive reasoning to support it. If that holds true, then January should be better. December 2018 was also basically snowless in the Front Range. Then things turned around rather nicely during the second roughly 2/3 of January. Of course, the mountains have done well with snow recently, which is good and important.

[ValpoVike]

We picked up about 4" on Saturday,  which is 4" more than I expected.

[raindancewx]

The GFS is essentially repeating the late Nov storm sequence for New Mexico in late December on the current run. Most runs since Dec 10 have shown a storm for NM 12/24-12/25, and then more after in the more recent runs.

The high for winter here is currently 52.5F through 12/15, 1/6th of winter complete. It's very difficult historically to get above average snowfall here Oct-May when the winter high is above 51.5F - but it should drop quite a bit over the next few days, and the signal for a wet January is quite strong. It's interesting though, you guys don't seem to be included in the wet January.

[snowfan789]

44 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

The GFS is essentially repeating the late Nov storm sequence for New Mexico in late December on the current run. Most runs since Dec 10 have shown a storm for NM 12/24-12/25, and then more after in the more recent runs.

The high for winter here is currently 52.5F through 12/15, 1/6th of winter complete. It's very difficult historically to get above average snowfall here Oct-May when the winter high is above 51.5F - but it should drop quite a bit over the next few days, and the signal for a wet January is quite strong. It's interesting though, you guys don't seem to be included in the wet January.

Some of those analog years were great in the Colorado Front Range. Some were not. The average is a bit misleading because of the huge spread.

[Chinook]

On 12/15/2019 at 9:08 AM, snowfan789 said:

December has so far been terrible east of the Rockies. I have seen 2018-19 thrown around as an analog for this winter season, with persuasive reasoning to support it. If that holds true, then January should be better. December 2018 was also basically snowless in the Front Range. Then things turned around rather nicely during the second roughly 2/3 of January. Of course, the mountains have done well with snow recently, which is good and important.

Since November 25th, Fort Collins has been -2.2 F in temperature, with 294% of normal snow and 439% of normal precipitation, (393% of normal at my place) . Snow is still on the ground here in some of the areas that face the sun. So, December has felt snowy, even though little snow fell out of the sky. Not much will happen here soon, and temps will be 40's and possibly some 50's. But that's good for my trip. I will be flying out tomorrow, and there should be few weather problems anywhere before I get back.

[The Waterboy]

1 hour ago, Chinook said:

Since November 25th, Fort Collins has been -2.2 F in temperature, with 294% of normal snow and 439% of normal precipitation, (393% of normal at my place) . Snow is still on the ground here in some of the areas that face the sun. So, December has felt snowy, even though little snow fell out of the sky. Not much will happen here soon, and temps will be 40's and possibly some 50's. But that's good for my trip. I will be flying out tomorrow, and there should be few weather problems anywhere before I get back.

I’m headed to your area to see some family right after Christmas.  I’m hoping there’s a storm during that time!  

[ValpoVike]

14 hours ago, The Waterboy said:

I’m headed to your area to see some family right after Christmas.  I’m hoping there’s a storm during that time!  

Define area a bit more.  Mountains may see some on Christmas eve and day, plains looks pretty dry.

[smokeybandit]

Plains look pretty dry the rest of the year

[The Waterboy]

4 hours ago, ValpoVike said:

Define area a bit more.  Mountains may see some on Christmas eve and day, plains looks pretty dry.

Denver, Fort Collins, Greeley.    

[ValpoVike]

3 minutes ago, The Waterboy said:

Denver, Fort Collins, Greeley.    

Well, the great thing about the northern front range is that regardless of the weather down below you can always drive up to RMNP and visit a ton of snow.