Mountain West Discussion

[Chinook]

We've had 7 straight days of some forest fire smoke, and yesterday Fort Collins broke a record at 96 degrees. Today: I believe Fort Collins broke a record with 98 degrees. Denver was 96, and then 99 today.

[mayjawintastawm]

And 97 today, 3 record highs in a row. The low this AM was only a couple degrees cooler than the record high min too. September is the new July, only drier. I wonder if the hydrology folks will start talking about flash drought, though many places on the Eastern Plains have had some soakers to hold that off.

[Chinook]

On 9/11/2021 at 5:36 PM, mayjawintastawm said:

And 97 today, 3 record highs in a row. The low this AM was only a couple degrees cooler than the record high min too. September is the new July, only drier. I wonder if the hydrology folks will start talking about flash drought, though many places on the Eastern Plains have had some soakers to hold that off.

3 Records in a row for Fort Collins

A couple of rain showers came in today. There was brief thunder, and the pavement got wet, but not for too long. The view of the mountains is now much more clear.

[AppsRunner]

Outside of Tuesday the long range pattern looks hot through the majority of September. How far will we go into October before we see snow?

[ValpoVike]

6 hours ago, AppsRunner said:

Outside of Tuesday the long range pattern looks hot through the majority of September. How far will we go into October before we see snow?

The mountains have already had snow this year (a couple of weeks ago).  For my area, ~Estes Park and Larimer county above 7k', I will predict Oct 7th.  This is a very average date for us over the past few years.  Last year was a very notable exception on Labor Day.

 

[Chinook]

Larimer County got some unexpected thunderstorms last night, with around 0.10" to 0.48" for Fort Collins

[raindancewx]

Summer PDO was 6th most negative in the past 90 years. Don't think the dryness is really much of a surprise given that fact. Although the monsoon was actually fairly strong in a lot of places south and west of me.

[finnster]

On 9/11/2021 at 5:36 PM, mayjawintastawm said:

And 97 today, 3 record highs in a row. The low this AM was only a couple degrees cooler than the record high min too. September is the new July, only drier. I wonder if the hydrology folks will start talking about flash drought, though many places on the Eastern Plains have had some soakers to hold that off.

I don’t keep track of this, but I wonder when is the last date there’s actually been a below normal temp this summer on the northern front range?  One thing I’ve noticed about this and recent summers here:  anytime we are fortunate enough to get a shower, it must then be immediately followed by yet another hot/dry spell that negates any benefits from said shower. 
 

 

[mayjawintastawm]

2 hours ago, finnster said:

I don’t keep track of this, but I wonder when is the last date there’s actually been a below normal temp this summer on the northern front range?  One thing I’ve noticed about this and recent summers here:  anytime we are fortunate enough to get a shower, it must then be immediately followed by yet another hot/dry spell that negates any benefits from said shower. 
 

 

Denver was 2 degrees below normal on August 21. Cheyenne was 2 degrees below normal on August 29. I couldn't find any reporting stations with climate normals on the northern Front Range in CO.

[mayjawintastawm]

Hopefully tomorrow (or maybe today) will be the last 90 degree temp of 2021 in Denver. 

We have lived here for 12 summers. 11 of them (all but 2014) have been in the top 20 for most 90 degree days in Denver. 

[Chinook]

sep 1: light rain (trace)
sep 1-2: low visibility again
sep 3: morning rain shower 0.01 to 0.12" evening thunderstorm. constant thunder in clouds, total: 0.34"
sep 9: high temp of 95-97 (record)
sep 10: high temp of 95-98 (record)
sep 11: high temp of 96 at fort collins (record)
sep 13-14: nighttime thunderstorms of 0.03" with 0.10"-0.48" in Fort Collins and 0.08" in Loveland
sep 16: high temp of 90-93
sep 17: high temp of 71
sep 18-19: high temps in the 80's
sep 20: sprinkles overnight (trace), high temp of 66-70, clear sky, light snow on mountains, north wind of 20 mph

[Chinook]

sunset

 

[Chinook]

Some rain and thunderstorms will affect the southwestern US on Monday through Thursday. For northern Colorado, there should be a chance for rain on Wednesday with a cold front. There is a chance that another upper low could bring heavy rain to New Mexico and Texas after that.  The GEFS averages say that Denver will be above average for almost every 5-day period out to 15 days.

 

[raindancewx]

I'm rooting against the September rain being heavy in Albuquerque. It's a terrible dry signal for the SW in La Ninas (heavy rain in Sept), even relative to the normal La Nina dry signal. But it's also hard to find a bad winter after a wet October here, regardless of ENSO state. Years like 1960, 1984, 2000, 2011 all had wet Octobers. The Euro had 1.4 inches of rain in Albuquerque on 10/1 on a recent run.

[raindancewx]

The GFS has a 980 mb low south of the tip of Kamchatka on 10/3. It's been there, or similar for a few runs now. That's probably a good snow event for at least the higher terrain of NM and CO if that verifies in a few days. Would be 10/20-10/24 if the GFS timing is right.

[n1vek]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

The GFS has a 980 mb low south of the tip of Kamchatka on 10/3. It's been there, or similar for a few runs now. That's probably a good snow event for at least the higher terrain of NM and CO if that verifies in a few days. Would be 10/20-10/24 if the GFS timing is right.

I am glad we are back to reading raindance posts tracking Kamchatka lows. It has been awhile. 

[Chinook]

Sheridan was almost 40 degrees warmer than Gallup. Temperatures were up to 96 in North Dakota.

 

[raindancewx]

Ruh Oh. The GFS still has a very powerful low in same spot as 2/24/2021. That spot, +17-21 days is trouble for New Mexico and Colorado storms. Should be something pretty big coming through in that period. 3/13 was the Rockies blizzard right? You can see the +17 to +21 days works pretty well from that spot.

[mayjawintastawm]

On 9/26/2021 at 8:46 PM, n1vek said:

I am glad we are back to reading raindance posts tracking Kamchatka lows. It has been awhile. 

Here's to the end of a long dry spell, maybe???

0.8" of rain at DEN in the 92 days going back to 6/29. If there were more trees around here, I'd worry about fires. And I'm flying back from the East coast on 10/20, so that tracks pretty well.

[Chinook]

Several areas got about 0.05" of today with a non-thunder rain shower moving across the area. It's not much. The temperature was cooler in to the upper 50's just after the rain.

This might be one of the last times to be able to use the NCEP web site for the GEFS ensemble plumes, but they still should be on "weather dot us" web site if you are interested in rainfall/snowfall amounts for this winter. 

Talking about winter, I will start the Mountain West winter thread on Oct. 1st, just perhaps to avoid confusion. It's obviously not too wintry.

[ValpoVike]

Yeah, get that winter thread going.  I actually had to fire up the heater this afternoon.  Up here, sitting at a balmy 42 degrees and socked into the cloud deck with very limited visibility.  It feels November'ish...

[raindancewx]

Still there. Time-frame on this is 6 pm Saturday. So 10/2 evening +17-21 days. Roughly 10/19-10/23 or 10/20-10/24 for a storm for NM & CO. Roughly speaking, Kamchatka functions as the Rockies in the Bering Sea Rule. So the storms south/east of Kamchatka can pull in Gulf of California and/or Gulf of Mexico moisture depending on the path they take.

[ValpoVike]

1 hour ago, raindancewx said:

Still there. Time-frame on this is 6 pm Saturday. So 10/2 evening +17-21 days. Roughly 10/19-10/23 or 10/20-10/24 for a storm for NM & CO. Roughly speaking, Kamchatka functions as the Rockies in the Bering Sea Rule. So the storms south/east of Kamchatka can pull in Gulf of California and/or Gulf of Mexico moisture depending on the path they take.

I sure do enjoy reading your posts in the fall/winter/spring.  You know it's definitely time to start that winter thread when Raindance is talking about Kamchatka.