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Mountain West Discussion- cool season '23-24


mayjawintastawm
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Along with the massive Pacific storm going on, a warm air mass. The unusually warm Pacific air mass created some chinook winds for the north country, with 60 degrees in Alberta. That area might average. Areas in Montana had the 60's, while their climatological average highs are just in the 30's. Helena was 26F above normal according to 4:00PM climate summary, which counts the morning low and high temperature up to that time in the day.

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We have a lower range to our west and there is a slight chinook effect in the Columbia valley, but it never gets above 50F here in any winter patterns, at least not before late Feb. I saw on Spokane news on TV in local lounge it was 52F today in GEG and CDA, and rivers are in flood around Portland OR where somebody drowned while out for a walk in a park. Our snow is running off fairly steadily and there won't be any left below our elevation by Tuesday afternoon at this rate. Almost a warm rain at moment, 46F. 

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this what I posted on Great Lakes/Ohio Valley a couple of days ago. It's after I was explaining how I made a snowball in June 2022 at Cameron Pass before I left.

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Cameron is at 10276 and accumulates a lot of snow since it's in the north. I've seen two moose there and have heard others tell me they've seen moose. Some of the highest passes are 12000 like Independence. Monarch is 11300, Rocky Mountain Natl Park has 12108 but that's not a high-volume US highway for shipping and commerce. Berthoud pass is at 11300 on US 40, a main commerce road. If you've got a well-built SUV, and a lot of experience, you can drive an old mining road nearly all the way to Mt. Antero where the road stops at 13800. Then I-70 and US-6 almost go in the same spot but I-70 tunnels through Loveland Mountain (not to be confused with Loveland city.) If you like weather observations from METARS, K0CO (yes, that's right, mixed numbers and letters) is above Berthoud pass and pretty much just has a freezing blizzard all the time.

 

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19 hours ago, Chinook said:

this what I posted on Great Lakes/Ohio Valley a couple of days ago. It's after I was explaining how I made a snowball in June 2022 at Cameron Pass before I left.

 

I've made a snowball in every calendar month in CO. I think Loveland Pass (11992') is the windiest place I've ever been in a car, and I've been through a couple of low-end hurricanes. Is K0CO what you see uphill from Berthoud Pass on the ridge, on the right as you're driving north (toward Winter Park)? That's at least 500 feet above the pass itself.

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I think there are just a few buildings and the weather station on Colorado Mines Peak, which might be 500ft above the Berthoud Pass parking lot and a few hundred feet east of it. It seems like this would be difficult to see from all angles. And how do they shovel snow at these things?

 

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The 00z models are still showing a lot of variations as to how the Christmas Eve snow event will happen. The GFS says that some snow will come in to the Front Range cities as early as 12/23 at 8:00 in the evening. Here is the GFS for 09z, which is 2:00AM on Christmas Eve. Some areas of heavy snow will be in the southwestern portion of Colorado, with southerly flow on the San Juans. There should be varying amounts in the rest of the mountains. The Plains/cities will have a more challenging forecast for snow amounts throughout the entire 24-hour period on Christmas Eve. The models will try to figure out the snowfall rates and maybe try to decide if the temperature will be below freezing, or something helpful like that.

 

2023_12_21_00z_GFS_81hr_precip_type.png

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