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Mountain West Discussion- cool season '23-24


mayjawintastawm
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This is one of the nastiest storms that I could think of stretching from Portland well into the Snake River Valley, neither of which commonly have heavy winter precipitation. You can see rain, freezing rain, sleet, and snow on this map. Near zero degree temperatures east of the Cascades is uncommon, especially with these wind chills below zero with the 10mph-20mph winds.

 

2024011323_metars_lws.gif

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Just for record, -44 at Glasgow and -43F at Jordan, montana, were lowest min I could find in lower 48 so far (for Sunday a.m.) ... lows into -40s in Alberta and -50s F north of Edmonton (-59 F in n.w. Alberta at Keg River). As cold as that sounds, it was -74F in 1947 at Watson Lake in southeast Yukon. 

At my location, Friday and Saturday were exceptionally cold, it moderated a little today. I don't maintain records but based on nearby stations and usual differentials, it was about -32 C (-25 F) overnight, and -5 F for daytime maxima (about +7 F today). We have ice crystal fog and saw low-altitude sundogs from the ice crystals. 

Deep winter and another snowfall of 15-20 cms expected midweek during moderation to 25-30 F. 

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I've been out of town this whole time, was planning to fly back this evening but flight canceled - grr.<_<

will have to make do with the archive of my thermometer and snow estimates from COCORAHS. Looks like 1.3" total from the whole event. Anyway, kudos to all who managed this crazy cold.

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We got down to -30° at the Laramie airport last night, the coldest temperature since January 2017 here when it got to -40. Driving around outside town in the Laramie Valley the car thermometer read -40°

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On 1/13/2024 at 9:25 AM, ValpoVike said:

It looks like there may be a strong inversion in place or something. Looking at Davis Weathernet, my station is at -17, a nearby neighbors station is -18, but stations 5 miles away in Estes and a couple hundred feet higher are in the +teens.  That’s a huge difference. 

IMG_1637.png


I believe that's the result of a shallow polar/arctic airmass. I've seen that a few times during winter on wx data where it can be around 0 F in Denver for example, but at the same time, around + 30 F higher up in the mountains like in Aspen, CO.

I've also seen photos taken around Denver not too far up in the mountains above the clouds (where the top of the frontal inversion or cold dome is). Usually around 5 Kft above sea level with those shallow air masses, but it may be higher in that region.

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8 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

I love me some fantasyland GFS

 

image.png.5812c9336d7f032d37670bae0253cd12.png

Could happen... nah.

Might be fun for some bored mets to add up long-range snow totals from the GFS (say, hour 240 and bigger) in different places over a winter and see what happens. Tens of feet, I'm sure.

On a more serious/scientific note, is there a point to these super long-range forecasts? Are they just a starting point for model improvements to see what happens year over year? I'd guess there are some poor souls up in Boulder or somewhere tasked with improving the GFS at hours 240-384.

It would be nice to have something in between the very broad-brush probabilistic outlooks for temp and precip that CPC creates and the super-precise but completely unreliable model outputs we get. (also the CPC outlooks page looks like it hasn't been redesigned since the last millennium).

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23 hours ago, ValpoVike said:

I just saw that too.  The Euro in particular has some crazy accumulations. 

I have a feeling in my bones....

No actually, I need to decide whether to ski tomorrow (bluebird skies, probably no powder but decent conditions) or a day next weekend (chance of huge powder, also possible horrendous traffic and no visibility).  I know the best answer is "both" but that's not really an option.  Good problem to have, I suppose.

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