Mountain West Discussion

[Chinook]

Some low-rainfall severe storms over the mountains and plains.

 

Edit: 

some severe storm damage from wind in the Denver area.

Edit:

DIA had a gust to 78mph with blowing dust and a thunderstorm.

 

[smokeybandit]

That line basically got to my house and split up. Barely any wind, only a few drops of rain.

[Chinook]

Interesting pic/video here.  My place had about 45mph wind gusts and 3-5 minutes of heavy rain, and several rumbles of thunder.  It was pretty exciting. Most of the time I don't see strong wind with thunderstorms around here.   Wind gusts were up to 58mph at Fort Collins-Loveland airport. This was an extremely unusual wind event/derecho for the high plains, as most other derechos/ wind events start farther east.

 

[Quincy]

 

[Chinook]

I saw that this had been retweeted by Reed Timmer (map is from the SPC)

[Chinook]

My area had wind gusts and quickly dropping temperatures after the cold front. Then, at about 9:45PM, the temperature had fallen to about 45 degrees, and a hailstorm came in with 0.25" hail, wind gusts of 40 mph, and lightning. Then, I think we just had some rain with maybe some lightning, with continued wind gusts over 30mph. there was snow in Laramie and also in most areas of the mountains.

 

 

[raindancewx]

The snows in Wyoming were pretty neat to see. Some spots latest big event since 1974.

Locally, the low of 48 today was the coldest it has been in June on any day since 2008. The coldest the city has been in June since 1931 is 40 - so fairly impressive cold front. Long-term, a year when June falls below 50F in Albuquerque favors strong cold shots in the West in Nov-Feb. This indicator is one I've known about for a while, it is the only one even close to statistical significance for predicting lows below 0 in Nov-Feb.

[mayjawintastawm]

Have to say I'm quite done with this wind... broken branches on Sat, more broken branches on Sun, and still more last night. The rain was great, but 3 straight days of 50+ mph gusts (peak around 70 on Sat) is enough. If I were a tree, I'd pull up my roots and move. Come to think of it, a neighbor's healthy 45 foot spruce did just that during the derecho. (sorry, no pics because it was on top of their house)

[raindancewx]

In a lot of ways, the past few months have resembled 1966 - will be interesting to see if that continues going forward.

[Chinook]

A couple of days ago, I was going to post about how hot it is going to be. Today, I found some GEFS runs that show a cool and wet period coming up. So maybe this could be a nice (short) period of drought relief for CO/KS, possibly NM and WY. The way things are going, it is going to take many months to get out of the drought in southern Colorado.

[mayjawintastawm]

Would be nice. I was thinking this AM about how few thunderstorms and how little hail (I know I should not wish for hail!!) we've had so far in June. Should have planted the tomatoes earlier!

[yoda]

Lulz

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service Great Falls MT
117 PM MDT Mon Jun 15 2020

MTZ008-014-015-052-055-161200-
/O.NEW.KTFX.WS.A.0007.200617T0000Z-200617T1800Z/
Beaverhead-Central and Southern Lewis and Clark-Madison-Jefferson-
Gallatin-
Including Big Hole Pass, Wisdom, Monida Pass, Virginia City,
Boulder, Boulder Hill, Elk Park Pass, Homestake Pass,
and Targhee Pass
117 PM MDT Mon Jun 15 2020

...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY EVENING THROUGH
WEDNESDAY MORNING ABOVE 5000 FEET...

* WHAT...Heavy snow possible above 5000 feet. Total snow
  accumulations of up to 8 inches. Locally higher amounts
  exceeding 12 inches are possible above 7500 feet.

* WHERE...Elevations above 5000 feet in Beaverhead, Central and
  Southern Lewis and Clark, Madison, Jefferson, and Gallatin
  Counties.

* WHEN...From Tuesday evening through Wednesday morning.

* IMPACTS...Travel could be difficult. Hazardous backcountry
  conditions. The weight of the snow on branches with foliage
  could cause them to break.

* Note...This Winter Storm Watch does not include the cities of
  Bozeman, Ennis, Dillon, or Helena.

[yoda]

Over a foot of snow possible... in mid June 

URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE
National Weather Service Missoula MT
1049 AM MDT Mon Jun 15 2020

MTZ007-170000-
/O.NEW.KMSO.WS.A.0007.200617T0000Z-200617T1800Z/
Butte/Blackfoot Region-
1049 AM MDT Mon Jun 15 2020

...WINTER STORM WATCH IN EFFECT FROM TUESDAY EVENING THROUGH
WEDNESDAY MORNING...

* WHAT...Heavy wet snow possible. For elevations 5000 feet and
  higher: total snow accumulations of up to 8 inches possible.
  Locally higher amounts of 12 to 15 inches possible in the
  highest terrain (above roughly 6500 feet).

* WHERE...Butte, Georgetown Lake, Highway 12 Garrison to
  Elliston, Homestake Pass, and MacDonald Pass.

* WHEN...From Tuesday evening through Wednesday morning.

* IMPACTS...Travel could be very difficult. Backcountry
  conditions could become difficult, if not dangerous, during this
  time.

[raindancewx]

This has been a bit of a weird June so far for precipitation patterns nationally. New Mexico has been in its own little precipitation island. Sort of pseudo monsoon-ish feel - excessive dryness in TX usually means a high there, which is good for NM.

June is running around triple average precipitation for the narrow wet area on the map below.

[Chinook]

Picture of the derecho on June 6

[raindancewx]

The period June 22-June 28 is often stupid hot. If we're going to hit 100 this year, it is likely in that period where I am. I am little skeptical that we will get there. A lot of little dry lines, cold fronts, and thunder storms this June have made it hard for the super hot days to come about with regularity. We'll see how it goes - I'm sure we have at least three more days above 95 by the end of the month at a minimum.

[finnster]

After a pretty decent May, at least here in the foothills NW of Fort Collins, thunderstorms typical of early June have been noticeably absent.  If we don’t get some rain soon, our next hope will be for the monsoon pattern to kick in mid-July.  At least that’s the typical pattern, however it seems it has been a while since we’ve had a robust monsoon pattern in this area in July/August.  Here’s hoping we don’t see the hot/dry summer pattern that has dominated many recent years.  Maybe this is the year we get a decent monsoon showing .

[Chinook]

Sunset last night was a little red, possibly due to forest fires in Arizona.

 

[Chinook]

One Arizona wildfire has grown to 151,000 acres at the same time a COVID-19 troubles.

 

[Chinook]

My area had a brief rain shower last night, and today, we had a couple of thunderstorms (no hail.)  Tomorrow, the Front Range may see some more areas of thunderstorms, with large hail as a possibility.  It is nice that it's not totally dry recently. At least my area is getting close to average for rainfall, with, probably at least 1.52" for the month.

 

Quote

For Friday, temperatures will be cooler behind the front with
high temperatures around 80 degrees. The big question will be how
much thunderstorm activity we get and the potential for strong or
severe storms? Latest NAM soundings show very stable airmass and
strong inversion 700mb until late afternoon and then most storms
will be confined to elevated terrain of the Palmer Divide with
near zero chances over Denver. The high resolution HRRR on the
other hand is rather bullish and sending a whole line of
convection marching from west to east over the whole plains after
19z. This seems excessively bullish and think it may take a while
for convection to get going on the plains. For now will play a bit
in the middle but focus the higher pops over higher terrain and
for a mid/late afternoon target time of initiation. If and when
storms do fire there will be ample CAPE of 1500j/kg and sufficient
mid level flow for a few severe storms with damaging winds and
hail the main threats. Moisture levels also are up with
precipitable water values progged to be around an inch by late
afternoon over much of the plains.

 

[Chinook]

On 6/9/2020 at 4:15 PM, raindancewx said:

The snows in Wyoming were pretty neat to see. Some spots latest big event since 1974.

Locally, the low of 48 today was the coldest it has been in June on any day since 2008. The coldest the city has been in June since 1931 is 40 - so fairly impressive cold front. Long-term, a year when June falls below 50F in Albuquerque favors strong cold shots in the West in Nov-Feb. This indicator is one I've known about for a while, it is the only one even close to statistical significance for predicting lows below 0 in Nov-Feb.

 

Interesting note for Raindancewx: Go look up this 1 hour long video of the sun. This video should have enough info to show nearly one complete cycle of sunspots.

NASA released a truly epic video on Wednesday that compiles 10 years of the Solar Dynamics Observatory's views of our star. 

[raindancewx]

Haven't looked in a few days, but it actually looked like June 2020 would see a lot more solar activity than last June. So the absolute floor of the solar cycle 12-month min will likely be the 12 months ending May 2020 - but we'll have to see. There are certain things that just don't seem to happen or happen more frequently at the minimum in a statistical sense. It has been snowing a lot in April here, but not in March in Albuquerque - late last snowfalls with little to snow in March are both effects that have unusual concentrations by portion of the solar cycle, with the p-values in a difference of proportion test at like 0.001, i.e. well under a 1% chance of being a fluke in the data v. a real effect.

[Chinook]

possible tornado near Colorado Springs/ Palmer Divide

[Chinook]

There's a new storm with up to 1" hail heading for downtown Denver.

[smokeybandit]

In typical fashion, the best part of that storm went just south of me.

[Chinook]

There have been plenty of hail reports near Colorado Springs, now the storm has 75 dBz. There could have been a tornado, but there are no reports.

[mayjawintastawm]

There is a flash flood warning for my exact town. Apparently 1.5 inches of rain have fallen. I go outside and the ground is bone dry. Where’s the big umbrella in the sky?!? Grr, the past two weeks we should have had 1-2 inches and have had 0.02”.

[Chinook]

1 hour ago, mayjawintastawm said:

There is a flash flood warning for my exact town. Apparently 1.5 inches of rain have fallen. I go outside and the ground is bone dry. Where’s the big umbrella in the sky?!? Grr, the past two weeks we should have had 1-2 inches and have had 0.02”.

Sorry to hear that. I guess the storms missed your area. There was almost no precip on radar-estimated storm total for your area.   My place got some moderate rain today, with a few loud rumbles of thunder. maybe 0.25"-0.40".  As I said yesterday, my area kind of keeps getting lucky. Yesterday the storm total was about 0.12" but it felt like more.

[raindancewx]

On 6/16/2020 at 7:25 PM, raindancewx said:

The period June 22-June 28 is often stupid hot. If we're going to hit 100 this year, it is likely in that period where I am. I am little skeptical that we will get there. A lot of little dry lines, cold fronts, and thunder storms this June have made it hard for the super hot days to come about with regularity. We'll see how it goes - I'm sure we have at least three more days above 95 by the end of the month at a minimum.

No 100 degree heat yet. We have had our three 95 or hotter days already though, as I mentioned here.

It is kind of crazy how it works here, something like 64 days will be 90 or hotter in an average year, but only 21 will be 95 or hotter, and only 2.5 will be 100 or hotter. It just rapidly decays with each degree.

 

[Chinook]

The drought has been getting steadily worse for a number of areas. The GEFS ensembles don't show any notable above-normal precip areas in the southwestern 1/4 of the US very soon.