Mountain West Discussion

[mayjawintastawm]

2.8" snow here after about 0.1" rain all night. Nice. Roads may dry a bit in many places before everything freezes.

[Chinook]

Got a bit of luck today on checking the web cams: lenticular north of Denver

[smokeybandit]

Looks like some quiet, boring weather for the next week or two

[Chinook]

One time, I went on US 550 to go to the Durango-Silverton Railroad

[Chinook]

snowing at Breckenridge and Colorado Springs

 

[mayjawintastawm]

Just an inch of snow here last night but enough to cause about 10^5 accidents.

[smokeybandit]

Some good snow south of me, but only a half inch for me, mostly in the evening.

[Chinook]

looking east to the Tetons (I think). This stuff is too neat.

[Chinook]

You guys aren't having wintry weather

[ValpoVike]

I took this while hiking the Twin Owls trail in RMNP today. One of the best days for lenticulars in quite some time. 

[mayjawintastawm]

On 12/21/2024 at 5:02 PM, Chinook said:

You guys aren't having wintry weather

Nope. On track for the #2 driest (trace of precip) and top 10 warmest Dec, maybe top 5. Been in the mid 60s consistently the last 3-4 days and minimums above freezing. I wonder if December will finish warmer than November- right now Dec average is 40.1 and November was 38.2.

[gallopinggertie]

This winter has been profoundly boring in Portland, Oregon. Coldest temperature of 27, zero snow or ice, hardly any wind or heavy rainstorms. Lame even by our standards.

[mayjawintastawm]

Don't look now, but the long range forecast for this neck of the woods is trending cold and maybe snowy the first week of January. Happy New Year?

[smokeybandit]

Doesn't appear to be overly cold, except for the first couple days of the year, and dry as a bone outside the mountains in that time period.

[mayjawintastawm]

Yeah, that CPC Christmas Eve long range outlook doesn't seem to be panning out at all, with cold air mainly confined to east of 102 W and precip staying north and south. Reminds me of the ridge that wouldn't quit a few summers ago.

[gallopinggertie]

This winter continues to be horrible for the Pacific Northwest, with little hope on the horizon.

Actually, we’ve gotten pretty lucky here over the past 7 years for cold and snow. The snowfall averages here are similar to eastern cities like Raleigh or Nashville, and dud winters where it basically doesn’t snow at all tend to come every 3 or 4 years on average. 

A couple of my favorite winter weather events this decade were December 2022 and February 2022. In the former I lived in Bellingham, Washington. It snowed about 9 inches of powder overnight and was downright frigid for the next four days. Then we got an epic ice storm before it all melted.

In February 2022 I was in Seattle and it snowed a foot! Sadly it only stuck around for a couple days. But it was pretty awesome - really deep snow is not common in the lowlands here.

[Chinook]

Quote

...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY REMAINS IN EFFECT FROM 11 PM THIS EVENING TO NOON MST TUESDAY...

* WHAT...Snow expected.

Total snow accumulations between 3 and 5 inches. Localized accumulations as high as 7 inches possible for the southern foothills and Palmer Divide.

* WHERE...Denver metro and surrounding suburbs, the southern foothills, the Palmer Divide, and the I-70 corridor through the plains.

* WHEN...From 11 PM this evening to noon MST Tuesday. Heaviest snow leading up to and during the Tuesday morning commute.

 

[Newman]

We got a surprise 5" or so of snow in Laramie last night. Was only expecting 1-3" max.

[mayjawintastawm]

3.0" here, slowly accumulating over 15 hours. Seems to be done now.

[smokeybandit]

About 3" here. Looks like 1-2 more tomorrow morning.

I'm ready for some real meat instead of these scraps.

[smokeybandit]

After the Monday storm underperformed, looks like today's storm will overperform. My 1-3" looks like it'll end up 4-6"

[beavis1729]

On 1/5/2025 at 5:34 PM, gallopinggertie said:

This winter continues to be horrible for the Pacific Northwest, with little hope on the horizon.

Actually, we’ve gotten pretty lucky here over the past 7 years for cold and snow. The snowfall averages here are similar to eastern cities like Raleigh or Nashville, and dud winters where it basically doesn’t snow at all tend to come every 3 or 4 years on average. 

A couple of my favorite winter weather events this decade were December 2022 and February 2022. In the former I lived in Bellingham, Washington. It snowed about 9 inches of powder overnight and was downright frigid for the next four days. Then we got an epic ice storm before it all melted.

In February 2022 I was in Seattle and it snowed a foot! Sadly it only stuck around for a couple days. But it was pretty awesome - really deep snow is not common in the lowlands here.

And the Midwest, northern plains, Rockies, and New England. 

Take a look at a current snow depth map for these areas…it’s unbelievably bad. The southern 3/4 of MN has bare ground, which is shocking for January 9th. Even northern MN only has 2-4” of snow cover, when they should have 12”+.

Unfortunately, it has been a horrible winter for a lot of areas. Hopefully things change soon for all of us, as it’s really getting ridiculous. Speaking for my backyard, we haven’t had a good winter since 2014-15.

[gallopinggertie]

17 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

And the Midwest, northern plains, Rockies, and New England. 

Take a look at a current snow depth map for these areas…it’s unbelievably bad. The southern 3/4 of MN has bare ground, which is shocking for January 9th. Even northern MN only has 2-4” of snow cover, when they should have 12”+.

Unfortunately, it has been a horrible winter for a lot of areas. Hopefully things change soon for all of us, as it’s really getting ridiculous. Speaking for my backyard, we haven’t had a good winter since 2014-15.

Yeah, the last decade has been pretty decent for this part of the country, arguably better than for normally snowier places like Washington, DC. There is a ton of geographic variation here though, so often Seattle will have a snowstorm and nothing falls in Portland, or vice versa. Also anywhere above 1000’ gets a lot more snow here, and there are a lot of interesting medium-scale geographic features that affect snowfall. 

Right now I’m living vicariously through the Tennessee/upper South storm. 

[beavis1729]

1 hour ago, gallopinggertie said:

Yeah, the last decade has been pretty decent for this part of the country, arguably better than for normally snowier places like Washington, DC. There is a ton of geographic variation here though, so often Seattle will have a snowstorm and nothing falls in Portland, or vice versa. Also anywhere above 1000’ gets a lot more snow here, and there are a lot of interesting medium-scale geographic features that affect snowfall. 

Right now I’m living vicariously through the Tennessee/upper South storm. 

Yeah, me too.

I’m sure you’re aware of how great January 1950 was in Portland…hard to imagine something like that happening again!

[gallopinggertie]

8 minutes ago, beavis1729 said:

Yeah, me too.

I’m sure you’re aware of how great January 1950 was in Portland…hard to imagine something like that happening again!

Yeah, that’s the all-time great. Weather fans here always hope for something like that…unfortunately, it might not be in reach anymore with climate change, but we’ll see.

December 2008 was not to that level, but it was still pretty awesome in Seattle. A foot and a half of snow over the course of a couple weeks, and many subfreezing highs. Another standout was in Bellingham was 2016-2017, when we had a total of about twenty inches of snow and lakes froze solid enough to walk across in January. Or February 2019, with two weeks of mostly below-freezing temps followed by four days of on-and-off snow.

I haven’t seen a winter I would call truly epic here yet, though. Hopefully I’m lucky enough to live through one before winters get too warm! 

[mayjawintastawm]

12 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

After the Monday storm underperformed, looks like today's storm will overperform. My 1-3" looks like it'll end up 4-6"

Would make sense, 2.8" for me. But January seldom has heavy snows here, too dry. Average for Denver is just 6.5" so if we get another inch we'll be there.

[smokeybandit]

Ended up with 6 or so. Tough to measure with the wind.