Chinook

Things are getting back to being sort of normal here. The snow has melted, and eastern Colorado looks greenish on satellite images except for Elbert County. There is still some snow in the shaded spots. Yesterday, we had a high of 57, and today was 49, with mostly clear conditions recently. We have had a few clouds including some lenticular clouds recently. NOWDATA is back in operation, and Fort Collins got 10.3" of snow in October, which is fairly similar to October 2011, but we had the snowiest and coldest October since 2009. Fort Collins had 5 degrees on Halloween, which was the coldest low temperature on Halloween since 1991, which was 4 degrees. So, essentially, 4 degrees was the coldest Halloween in modern times. My place had about 8.7" of snow in October. Interesting note: in the 2003-2004 to 2018-2019 time frame, Boulder Co-op station averaged 89.5" of snow, Fort Collins averaged 48.2". Boulder's value in this time frame is ABOVE the 1981-2010 climo of 87.7", but Fort Collins is BELOW.

To all the weather weenies out there: Pivotalweather has created Hi-res ECMWF maps to 240 hours (surface and precipitation parameters)

The Canadian predicts a monster sleet-storm for Kansas. Just to let you know, the Canadian is not always that accurate.

CoCoRAHS snow plots

Fort Collins -CSU station has got 7.3" of snow since Saturday. The monthly average temperature is 46.2, which is 3.7F below normal for the month. We will finish the month with temperature departure colder than -3.7F. By the way, I had to go to the Midwest Regional Climate Center web site to look up these values for our co-op station (non-airport.) The NOWDATA on the NWS web site has not been working since earlier in October. Perhaps they should call it "THENDATA," because it worked *then*, but it doesn't work now.

8-12" forecast was a bust for much of the Denver area. 6-8" was a bust for Fort Collins/ Loveland. Certainly, things were slippery though, so it had an impact. It's not like it just melted off the road or anything. I think my storm total is about 4".

A storm report from DIA said 5.9" of snow. There was a heavy snow band east of DIA. For my area, we have got storm reports of 3" or more west of I-25. I can't really tell how much has fallen, but it's probably 2-3". Since we had some snow on Sunday, it's kind of hard to tell. It is 14 degrees here, so that is like a mid-January arctic temperatures. It's certainly not very helpful for the roads.

NWS lowered the snow forecast values in the north and in Wyoming

Graphics from NDFD graphics from NWS Boulder Denver

I had about 3" on elevated surfaces and 2.5" on the ground. I reported 2.5" to the NWS last night and that seems the most reasonable. It continued to snow after 10:00PM last night, but obviously not much accumulated. On to round two!

Snow is continuing here. It's not falling fast. We have over 2" and it has been accumulating on the grass since early afternoon. The radar right now shows there are higher dBz values in south Denver than here. That could sort of mean anything though. With colder temps, radar is not always super good at estimating QPF rates, so that's why you need people to measure and report on road conditions.

Several inches of snow have fallen in central Wyoming. Areas around here are in the 20s. My place has had light snow. I think Cheyenne may be getting a little closer to 1"

Our area has a winter storm watch. I am wondering about this will play out time-wise. The models have a 2nd wave of snow on Tuesday (GFS has this at about 12z-18z Tuesday). Nevertheless, there is a lot to be concerned about.

The cold front and snow storm system for Sunday to possibly Tuesday looks like it could be more significant than previous runs showed. Previous runs of the Canadian showed a lot of snow, at slightly later time frames. Now the Canadian is bonkers with 1.2" of QPF for Denver. The Euro has 1.2" of QPF for the city of Denver and northwards.

Today my area was 42 degrees and breezy by late afternoon. I saw a few rain drops out of the first band of precipitation at about 1:00PM. Such things remind me of late November and December in the Midwest. Right now, Denver has 34 degrees and snow with 1/2 mile visibility, with moderate dBz values on the radar.

Last night, we had another period of wind gusts of 30-60mph. I was in Fort Collins at 10:00PM and there were some 30mph wind gusts blowing leaves all over the place. There were brief 60mph winds recorded at the west side of Fort Collins. There is a winter weather advisory for Denver for tonight and tomorrow, with a winter storm warning from the Palmer Divide down to New Mexico border. NWS forecast for Colorado Springs: The GFS and other models show another cold front and snow for WY and CO on Sunday-Monday. Our area already has a temperature departure of -2.9F for the month (Denver.)

This is new. I didn't see this on the NWS web page yesterday.

Some normal weather last evening changed to windy weather of 30-50mph wind gusts in the Front Range cities. For my area, the greatest gusts were in the middle of the night at about 4:00AM. Currently, DIA has the strongest gusts of the day.

18z GFS has 8" of snow and 0.91" of QPF for downtown Denver on Wednesday to Thursday. This is likely a case of the GFS being precipitation-happy in the 120hr-168hr period, but it's worth watching. 12z Euro prediction:

GFS/ECMWF have snow for Denver area on Wed night to Thu morning.

What do you think about this large sector of +2C to +3C in the north Pacific? Will there be a ridge in the Gulf of Alaska for most of the winter?

That is a large area of similarly cold temperatures in the composite. A couple of notes: the last month or so has had a strong ridge in the Southeast and Ohio Valley. I wonder if this will break down this winter or maybe it will continue to pop up and help weather disturbances affect the Upper Midwest, as opposed to Mid Atlantic or Southeast Other note: this looks like a cool snake!

Check this out. There have been some 24" snow reports at Devils Lake, ND.

Now that it has snowed in Denver and this area, we will start the winter discussion for our region. To recap: On Wednesday it was 78 degrees here, but a cold front with 30 mph wind gusts brought the temp to about 39 by evening. On Wednesday night, I saw thunder and lightning with numerous graupel bits which would normally be called 1" of snow. Then, when I got home, there was just a bit of graupel on the ground. Then, Thursday morning, my place got 2" of snow or more. Then, on Thursday evening, there were snow flurries when I was at work. So, I had to go out to my car and clear off another 1/2" of snow off my car. I was wondering if the road would be icy, but I didn't notice anything slippery. Today, things are getting back to being a somewhat normal chilly day.

24-hr precip may have been as much as 9-16" near and southwest of Galveston