Western and Intermountain West U.S.

[Southland Wx]

Not that...we have all 4 seasons, they dont. So theres much more to be excited about because we dont have the same conditions all year

Correct. The variability in weather over time is much more significant in the East than in the West. However, the variability in weather over place is much more significant in the West than in the East I think. But, those patterns in the West are fairly constant. You know in certain situations, place A and place B will have uber strong winds, whereas place C will not (just an example). That's not to say it won't vary from time to time (especially in the Northwest or Rockies). In the East, every storm has a lot of uniqueness to it. And the impact of those storms on the population centers tends to be far greater. The wx in the West isn't boring if you truly love meteorology...but it's tough to find 100 different people to say 100 different things about it.

Salt Lake City and Denver, for instance, have quite the opposite. I disagree in that respect, but yes, all else being equal, there are less compared to east coast, but I think we can do better.

Sorry...should have made that more clear. I agree on this. In fact, Denver might have some of the most interesting wx in the US. SLC has lake effect, which is also a big plus.

[wxmeddler]

With this kind of weather right now (even this whole year), this place should be hoppin'.

[k***]

zzzzzz

[Mercurial]

the only interesting weather the mountain west gets is snow. If you don't like that then there's not much at all.

[WxDude]

I've lived in Grand Junction, Co now for about a year, and I have to say the weather is far from boring sometimes. Yes, we have our long stretches of bright blue skies and warm temperatures, which is basically perfect if you're NOT a meteorologist. When the weather turns active, however, it gets interesting in a hurry. The shear difficulty in forecasting here is almost indescribable. The micro-scale effects on the weather due to terrain can be so frustrating!

Anybody who says the weather in the west is boring, has obviously never lived here. Due to the air being so dry where I live (The Grand Valley), whenever we get convective showers/storms out here there will typically be a 40-60 mph downdraft, and a 15-20 degree drop in temperatures in the few minutes before it starts to rain/hail/snow. We also have nasty wind storms that can reduce visibility to under a mile and turn the sky reddish brown. And thats just in the valley. The high country, Rocky Mountains, can get 100 mph wind gusts during some of the stronger winter storms, and at the same time be receiving FEET of snow. The warnings across my DMA today include Wind Advisories, WSW, WWA and Avalanche Watches.

[BethesdaWX]

I lived there.....From my perpective, the East, In general, sees interesting storms alot more Frequently than the west. Sure, the western mtns are the snow champions, but in the lower elevations, the Eastern US sees almost every type of weather out there, frequently. Even the Pac NW cannot Match the variety/thrill of the East IMHO. I lived in the Pac NW for a few years.... it was a nightmare for me. Severe wx Sucked, Snow in the lowlands was hard to come by, not to mention the constant clammy, misty, weather in the winter... this being my take on it.

[WxDude]

I lived there.....From my perpective, the East, In general, sees interesting storms alot more Frequently than the west. Sure, the western mtns are the snow champions, but in the lower elevations, the Eastern US sees almost every type of weather out there, frequently. Even the Pac NW cannot Match the variety/thrill of the East IMHO. I lived in the Pac NW for a few years.... it was a nightmare for me. Severe wx Sucked, Snow in the lowlands was hard to come by, not to mention the constant clammy, misty, weather in the winter... this being my take on it.

I agree with that 150%

[trjacob1]

Had a few showers today in Phoenix, but nothing to write home about. The only interesting weather we see down here is during the monsoon season or when dying east Pacific tropical systems move north toward Arizona during September and October.

[aslkahuna]

Had a few showers today in Phoenix, but nothing to write home about. The only interesting weather we see down here is during the monsoon season or when dying east Pacific tropical systems move north toward Arizona during September and October.

Not always in September and October-Tropical Storm Lester was an August storm and quite a active one to boot with 70-80 mph gusts in the Valley around Sierra Vista. Remnants from the GOM can produce some really nice severe weather situations down here as well. Sierra Vista was a forecasting challenge for a number of reasons including terrain. Downslope winds gusting over 70 mph are common around there in the Winter and last December saw hurricane force gusts in one storm. But a lot depends upon the ENSO-a warm phase event usually results in active winter weather in AZ while the Monsoon is late and erratic and intense in the Summer following while a cold phase has a boring Winter with an active monsoon.

Steve

[ice1972]

Not that...we have all 4 seasons, they dont. So theres much more to be excited about because we dont have the same conditions all year

I live in West Hartford now but grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area......the seasons thing may be true - Fall by far is the most lacking of the four - but if you live in the foothills of the Sierra or in the mountains then there really isn't much of a differance......now that I have lived in CT for 6 years now I think I sit around waiting for the interesting weather as much as I sat around waiting for it in CA....granted summer out west sucks.....the forecast is simple.....if you live within a half mile of the coast it's gonna be foggy and 60....if you go inland a mile or two it will be sunny and 90.....but I think the winter is more dramatic than most here think......if you haven't lived there you don't know.....just look at what's going on out there now......I'm sitting in West Hartford in the supposed weather capital of the US and I'm watching my home town get pummeled and Lake Tahoe (my favorite ski spot) get buried under feet and feet of snow......and I'm thinking

For me it was the El Nino of '81-'82 (could be off a year) that turned me into a weenie....imagine that a weather weenie native to the west.....I'll admit that I really enjoy the weather here but there has been more than one doozy I can remember over my years (32 in CA) that could stand up against any storm here......the El Nino of '81-'82 had massive flooding in the Sacramento/San Juaquin River delta region.......1994 storm with heavy rain and 70 mph winds in Davis CA when I was going to school there......1997 New Years Day storm where rain fell up to elevation 7000 feet causing massive snow melt and flooding on the Truckee River in Reno......I remember driving up there from Davis to Reno in the heaviest rain I have ever experienced heading up I-80 in the Sierras....everything was flooded....when we got to Reno a landslide closed down the highway for 2 days....the airport and train station was flooded and you couldn't get in or out of the city.....I'll never forget the image of residents being evacuated to the casinos downtown.....or the sandbags around the hotel entrances.....it was so crazy.....

So IDK.....for me home has great weather - enough of it anyway to turn me into a weenie - for people on here who have never lived there to say it's boring or not exciting is kind of silly to me cuz it's not......

So anyway that's my peace....peace out....

[Cheeznado]

As an original westerner (Southern CA) who has lived in the Southeast for over 25 years, I can say that while interesting weather in the West can be a bit more infrequent, it can be very interesting and I still am very interested when a storm (like now) impacts the area. This new group is called American Weather after all, and it would be great if we had more folks out there involved. In fact, being a storm chaser, I think we should really separate western from central-nobody here can say the Plains is uninteresting in spring.....

[Mallow]

I lived there.....From my perpective, the East, In general, sees interesting storms alot more Frequently than the west. Sure, the western mtns are the snow champions, but in the lower elevations, the Eastern US sees almost every type of weather out there, frequently. Even the Pac NW cannot Match the variety/thrill of the East IMHO. I lived in the Pac NW for a few years.... it was a nightmare for me. Severe wx Sucked, Snow in the lowlands was hard to come by, not to mention the constant clammy, misty, weather in the winter... this being my take on it.

A few years during the most boring climate period we've gone through here in the Pac NW (late 1990s and early-to-mid 2000s) and you're an expert on our wx.

You're right that exciting wx in the big cities is generally much more infrequent here, but the severity can be just as bad.

And Jawsh: just because you don't like anything except tropical wx and hot, dry wx doesn't mean there aren't people who do.

[WxDude]

Should be an interesting day for me... One Winter Storm ends, and an even stronger and much colder one is on the way. Winter Storm Warnings for the mtns expire at 6AM Tomorrow. Blizzard Warnings in effect for the San Juans through tonight. Blizzard Watches are in effect for Wednesday, and by the Thursday morning temperatures across Western, CO will be well below 0º in some spots. Talk about the worst time for something like this to hit.. The busiest travel week of the year. It's going to be a long, but very exciting couple of days.

[Roger Smith]

I'll tell ya what's boring today, the arctic east wind is boring right through me, it's about 23 F and a slate grey sky with the sun dimly visible, wind ENE 20-30 mph and feels like about zero F out there. Snow frozen now and it feels more like the arctic circle than the banana belt.

[adk]

I'm always up for a little Intermountain weather talk. Esp. when it centers on the insanity that is little cottonwood canyon in Utah.

[msp]

As an original westerner (Southern CA) who has lived in the Southeast for over 25 years, I can say that while interesting weather in the West can be a bit more infrequent, it can be very interesting and I still am very interested when a storm (like now) impacts the area. This new group is called American Weather after all, and it would be great if we had more folks out there involved. In fact, being a storm chaser, I think we should really separate western from central-nobody here can say the Plains is uninteresting in spring.....

i do agree that eventually the plains/west will need to be separated from the midwest, but it's going to take doing so in an organized manner to make sure severe weather threads don't become a messy disaster.

[Cheeznado]

i do agree that eventually the plains/west will need to be separated from the midwest, but it's going to take doing so in an organized manner to make sure severe weather threads don't become a messy disaster.

Actually, there could be three areas- the West, the Plains and the Midwest.

[msp]

Actually, there could be three areas- the West, the Plains and the Midwest.

well, yes, eventually, but near-term, there's not enough to split the plains and west, and only questionably enough to split off the midwest from the two.

edit: i'll add that, being in texas now, there's nothing that would please me more than an all-out effort to recruit posters from the west and central areas where we're really lacking. there's enough interesting weather and sufficient population centers (CA, phoenix, denver, las vegas, SLC, seatac, portland, tx triangle, okc, kc, etc.) that there're surely more potential posters out there somewhere.

[deltadog03]

I think we certainly have a lot of stuff to talk about right now.

[baroclinic_instability]

I'm always up for a little Intermountain weather talk. Esp. when it centers on the insanity that is little cottonwood canyon in Utah.

Where are you in SLC?

[michsnowfreak]

Actually, there could be three areas- the West, the Plains and the Midwest.

That would be a good idea. There is a large member base from the Lakes/Midwest. Especially MI, IN, OH, IL, but also WI, KY, MO, KY, MN. It looks kind of silly actually when you look at a map of the U.S. and think that MI/OH are batched in the "Central/Western US" lol.

[Msalgado]

To begin with, I rarely posted on Eastern because the vast majority of the time I was there to learn and get some of the great insight you could from meteorologists and intelligent and informed people. I'm in school for Environmental Science at the University of New Mexico (planning to go onto grad school for atmospheric or climate sciences) and I just liked being able to come there and now here and listen in on conversations that had a large amount of interesting information. So while I was in the West, I didn't really feel that I had anything to add that wasn't being discussed already.

I am quite shocked to hear that some of you consider western weather to be boring. Before moving to NM I lived in San Antonio, TX virtually all my life. Granted, I got to witness inland tropic cyclones and some nice thunderstorms but other than that the weather was incredibly boring the vast majority of the time. The first weekend in NM after moving here this past march I experienced thunder snow. Within the first month I'd gone through several snow storms that dropped 8+ inches. As spring came on I witnessed some incredible wind storms with days of gusts over 50mph. The summer brought the monsoon and some incredible thunderstorms. The fall was fairly boring - not that I complain since the weather was amazing but now as we enter winter we're starting to get snow again (snowed all day today even if none of it managed to stick). The variety alone is amazing.

Also, in the spring I've just gotta drive past the Sangre de Christo Mountains into the plains in east NM to have access to supercells. The roads out here are far from great but its also empty as all hell which makes it nice.

I just don't get how anyone could label it boring. Aside from tropical cyclones there is an incredible amount and variety of weather here.