Chinook

A deep low pressure area in Wyoming and Montana on Saturday and Sunday will bring in some snow and even some rain for western areas of Colorado on those days. There will be perhaps a bit more snow for for Monday and Tuesday for mountain areas. It appears that most of eastern Colorado will get some warm temperatures on Saturday with possible strong southerly winds, with temperatures dropping on Sunday. A wind advisory seems possible for Saturday. Models have 1" of QPF for the western half of Colorado, with 2"+ for the southwest San Juan range.

Tuesday morning's lows (Mesowest)

New Mexico to West Texas storm reports (Oct 26-28) -- all times included

A couple of observations with gusts to 68mph

I am seeing an oil rig reporting 45mph gusting to 87mph near or in the eyewall. (kind of the edge of the KLIX radar range.)

72-hour snowfall analysis

Radar update for just Albuquerque

I got 8.7" of snow, by my measurements. On CoCoRAHS, my area got 0.80" of precipitation, and 8.3"-12.6" of snow. Edit: I'm not really sure why, but maybe my measurements were too low.

Snowfall was lighter for a while, but KFNL is now reporting 1/4 mile visibility, and I would say we are getting 1/2" of snow per hour.

I may have underestimated the snow at 12:00 or 12:30. I have gotten up to 6" by 2:30.

I've got heavy snow rates here. Edit: I measured 3.5". It will probably be 4.5" within 1 hour. KFNL 251856Z 35014KT 1/4SM +SN FZFG OVC004 M11/M13 A3026 RMK AO2 TWR VIS 2 SLP301 P0000 T11111133 FZRANO KFNL 251838Z 36013KT 1/4SM +SN FZFG BKN004 OVC008 M11/M13 A3025 RMK AO2 TWR VIS 2 P0000 FZRANO KFNL 251824Z 35012KT 1/4SM +SN FZFG OVC007 M11/M13 A3027 RMK AO2 TWR VIS 2 CIG 005V009 P0000 FZRANO

The storm is going to start here soon. We may only get a trace of snow before 1:00 or 2:00AM, but then I expect more steady accumulation.

Look at tonight's GFS. This is 100% absolutely nuts for lower elevations of New Mexico and West Texas and western Kansas-- up to 25" with ratios near Dalhart, TX. The weird part is, the new hurricane near Louisiana could be feeding moisture into this system by the time it gets down there.

The models show values that are pretty high-- even with 10:1 snow rations, and obviously higher with Kuchera snow ratios.

From NWS Boulder

It is a dark day here. The East Troublesome smoke plume is above the stratus clouds here, and whole sky appears dark orange in the middle of the day. There is about 3x as much ash as any other day-- the ash is noticeable on the sidewalks.

7-day snow accumulation from the GEFS-mean takes the snow and cold well down into New Mexico and northwest Texas, as well as all over Colorado, Wyoming, Nebraska, South Dakota, Montana, Minnesota, and Wisconsin.

Today's GFS has 7-9" for Sunday/Monday with Kuchera ratios, but today's Euro has 6-12" with 10:1 ratios. The higher mountains could get more than 20" out of this storm.

18z GFS has a bunch of snow for us on Sunday-Monday, 12z Canadian is low, but not zero, and 12z Euro is 6" + for most of Larimer County, but lower for Denver... probably still quite significant with 15:1 snow ratios at elevations higher than 5000 ft.

The GFS, Euro, and Canadian all show measurable snow in the next 7 days north of Denver. There's certainly a good chance of over 6" of snow for the north mountains. It is snowing in Iowa right now, so that's pretty early in the season for that area.

Our area went from 72 degrees yesterday to 40 degrees right now. Today's models have a very snowy look for the northern Plains/ northern Rockies within 10 days. You don't see this a whole lot of times in October.

One of my co-workers who lives in Loveland says she might have to evacuate. I assume she is over by the foothills, but I don't know for sure.

The models certainly have some snow for the northern Plains/northern Rockies in the near term. The models, surprisingly, have some agreement on pretty cold weather and possible snow for N. Colorado on 10/25 or 10/26.

We had a massive column of smoke from the Cameron Peak fire on Wednesday. At times, it looked tan and brown. At other times, it looked as dark as a thunderstorm in the north part of the sky. I think Fort Collins had ash falling from the sky. We also had a cold front come in at the same time, with easterly winds. The smoke smell wasn't too bad until today. Edit: my place has got the ash falling from the sky today. The sun looks like it's as orange as a neon light. (3:00PM, not sunset.)

On Saturday through Monday, some short-wave energy tracked into Canada from the Pacific, which wrapped up into a 500mb low in northwest Manitoba. There was dynamically cooling the air there, with lower 500mb heights. A ridge in Ontario ahead of this system pulled some warmer air aloft up into the Hudson Bay, which partially joined with a ridge over Greenland. The combination of ridging on all sides of the low in Canada is turning into a polar vortex with dynamically cooled 500mb air. This is just the time of year when air in the northern latitudes is cooling due to radiation loss, particularly with clear skies. So, much cooler air is developing at the surface.