Chinook

This snow squall warning is just east of me. -- @NWSBoulder: A snow squall warning is in effect until 5:30 PM MST for I-76 near Lochbuie, CO; I-25 near Longmont, CO; US-85 near Denver--Aurora, CO and US-85 near Fort Lupton, CO.

All of a sudden, I feel like I live next to a great lake. My place has had measureable snow for 5 out of the last 8 days and a trace on Thursday. @NWSBoulder Most areas along and west of I-25 have had 1-2" of snow and have slushy roads. Snow will decrease north of Denver by 11 PM, with 1/2 inch per hour snowfall continuing from Denver south and west, decreasing in those areas in the early morning hours. #cowx

I don't see this on any particular local storm report. Nevertheless, it is incredible what can happen when 500mb wind streak goes over a mountain range, with complex aerodynamics. I am not sure of the timing, so I don't know what the 500mb wind speed was at the time of this report. Raindance, unfortunately, mesoscale models still have quite low values of snow for Albuquerque, but at least some 0.3-0.5" of rain might be possible. --- NWS Boulder: Snow will increase along the Front Range during the rush hour, with slushy/icy roads by 8 PM, especially from Denver south and west. #cowx --

Yesterday we had some 40 degree temps yesterday and much better roads. We had with downslope wind gusts into the late night hours with temperatures above freezing at midnight. Now, our area has cooled down and gotten some snow again. It is associated with a developing 500mb low pressure in California and the cold front aloft extending eastward. My area has less than 1", but there appears to be 3-6" reports near Boulder, and 0.7" at DIA

I think I got another 2" after I posted yesterday. New snow bands came in. One of the snow bands shifted north of Fort Collins for a few hours until I went to bed. I wonder what happened there? Maybe 0.5" to 1" per hour snowfall rate for a while. For me, this now rivals the week of November 26th as the 2nd snowiest week I have seen in a few years, with, I think, 13.2" at my place. Most models agree on QPF values of 0.8" or better in New Mexico on Tuesday. I assume this will be mostly snow as the 700mb temperatures will be much lower than average.

My area got a band of snow this morning, generally after 8:00AM. We got 3". Temperatures have warmed to around 30 degrees, so snow is not as fluffy as before, and the streets are getting better already. By my calculations, that puts my place at 43.6" for the year, which puts us above average for this date. The snowless January has not seriously put us in danger of below normal snowfall for the year. The GFS shows snow in Albuquerque on Tuesday??? What??!!

The NW-flow snow event is already happening. A trace of snow occurred here at about 6:00PM and made the sidewalks a little slippery. So that makes 4 straight days this week that I have driven on wet or slippery roads. We are expecting some more snow tomorrow, with a winter weather advisory. low temps on Wednesday. I drove in between Loveland and Fort Collins with at least -11 F temperatures and some leftover snow from Tuesday. Thankfully, there was some open pavement that was non-icy. tomorrow's snowfall:

NWS forecast for Thursday-Friday is probably an average of several model forecasts, which show different amounts.

It kept snowing here today, with some large dendrites at times. It's so weird that it didn't snow up on radar. I think I got another 1-2", maybe 0.10" of water equivalent, so my snow depth is probably 8.2" - 9.2".

I got an extra 2.7" overnight! Now things look snowy around town. The storm was not a bust here. Looking back at the radar from overnight, 5-10 dBz on radar happened for the entire night, which doesn't sound like much.

My area dropped from 72 to 20 degrees in 24 hours, which is quite a shock, certainly about the highest 24 hour temp drop that I've experienced in Fort Collins/Loveland. My area has 4.5" of snow. Much of that fell in the morning with some nice dendrites. Freezing drizzle fell early in the day just before the snow started, and my car had a layer of ice on it in the morning. This was very annoying. The weather models are now beginning to agree on a northwest-flow snow event on Friday-Saturday for my area. The GFS has up to 0.9"-1.0" of QPF for Fort Collins and Cheyenne and also some high amounts for mountains north of I-70. In my opinion, northwest-flow snow events can be tricky, 700mb winds would be downsloping while snow is falling, which doesn't always work together well.

Today, Denver tied a record high of 74 set in 1934. (Interesting note: the winters of the 1930's were not generally as much above average as the dust-bowl summers.) Fort Collins had a record high of 74. Two places in Colorado hit 80 degrees today. A winter weather advisory has been issued for the Front Range cities, and a winter storm warning issued for areas over 6000 ft. Also winter storm warning for Boulder County, Jefferson County.

The 12z GFS has 9-14" for the Front Range cities, with over 12" very close to me. The NWS gridded forecasts still have 5-6" at Fort Collins with 8" at Boulder, 6-7" for Denver. This may be a time when this type of graphic showing Kuchera-ratio snowfall of over 20:1 doesn't really happen because the snow packs down better than that.

First forecast from NWS Boulder

Interesting forecast here: This is the snowiest run of the UKMET I have ever seen for our area. UKMET snow products have been on Pivotalweather since Monday or Tuesday. Otherwise, I haven't checked UKMET precip for years. Those people at Pivotalweather really must be something else to have full ECMWF data and full UKMET data.

The first winter weather advisories/watches for this storm have been issued for central Nevada up through Wyoming, including Salt Lake City. In Colorado, our area will probably get some light upslope snow on Monday, with higher snow rates later on Monday as the 500mb low approaches and the lift increases. I am hoping the heavier snow doesn't start too early on Monday, but 5:00 rush hour may be challenging. Overall, this is a pretty decent setup for snow with some easterly 700mb winds here east of the Rockies. The last time it snowed here was December 27-28th with 1.5". So the last two months were pretty much uneventful except for a few days with wind gusts, and hardly any days that were very cold. We have had just a few days with a high temperature below 40 since December 31st. I would think that we are on track for a colder week or two weeks after this. by the way, this happened a few days ago in Colorado. read the text carefully

A mix of rain and snow is happening at Denver, Colorado Springs, and Fort Morgan this afternoon. As per the radar, I don't think too much has happened in Denver city.

There were some heaps of lenticular clouds today. I haven't posted a picture of clouds or mountains for a long time, I think.

Are there any Toronto area people talking about this storm? The models are not in total agreement, but Toronto could get some snow on Saturday.

When every storm misses you

It looks like this storm is gone for good. The GFS was too happy with a closed 500mb low. One of the biases of models, in general, is to create more phased lows and huge storms. (in the long range, 7-10 days.)

Next week's storm could potentially happen on Wednesday. There are still pretty large differences between the GFS, Canadian and Euro. The situation is similar in many ways to my post yesterday. The Euro still has the 500mb troughs in two places, Montana and New Mexico. The GFS has somewhat flip-flopped today, but the 00z GFS came back with a big snowstorm with a 500mb closed low for Denver. The Canadian has a concentrated 500mb trough, but has snow mainly for the Sangre De Cristo mountains. Some days, I think the Canadian tries to do the same things as the GFS, but always comes out with worse accuracy. In this particular case, I don't know if there will be a storm. These (terrific) days, you can even check the Euro ensemble members QPF (for free) and they have some large differences in QPF.

If you look closely, the precipitation type in the red region (freezing rain) includes snow, drizzle (temp of 28 degrees at Wichita), freezing rain, unknown (question mark symbol... usually sleet), and rain. I'm glad I'm not there.

Freezing rain and possibly some sleet are starting to get going in OK, TX, with a small amount of snow in KS at this time.

I kind of assumed that nothing would happen for a while. Then the GFS and Canadian came up with different versions of this storm in about 1 week. The Euro does not have this. It has a trough in New Mexico and a trough in Montana at this time frame.