finnster

Greetings all. Just spent a week being evacuated and got back into our house yesterday (Lory State Park area). The extent of the fires and drought conditions is unreal. I don’t know what it will take to break down the pattern of nearly constant high pressure ridges in the western US, but that pattern is certainly the main culprit for the extreme conditions. Once in a great while the pattern will relax and a storm will get through - only to be followed by a ridge re-establishing. Rinse and repeat. Of course fires are nature’s way of regenerating healthy forests. This regeneration can only happen IF there is a period of cooler temps/storminess to enable it - and as we’ve seen over the past couple decades this cannot be taken for granted. With each passing year life in the western US gets more interesting and challenging. I'm Thankful and in awe of the job the fire fighters are doing in exceptionally bad conditions. They (and all of us!) desperately need a break from this relentlessly wicked weather pattern .

Hello I’ve been away from this forum for a couple months. As with many folks in the west it’s been a very tough summer - to put it mildly. Where I live west of Fort Collins, we’ve been on high fire alert - first from a smaller fire near Rist Canyon and then Cameron Peak. We’ve packed up our valuables a couples of times but have not had to evacuate. I can tell you the rain and snow received earlier in September saved our bacon. Many others have not been so fortunate. I consider it a miracle of sorts we got that storm in September. The day before we literally had our trailer packed ready to leave. Unfortunately it has now been 3 weeks + without any precipitation. Not sure what is causing the massive high pressure systems to the west but this seems to be more or less a permanent feature of the weather pattern. Until or unless there is a change in this pattern, the big fires burning now will keep going despite the fire fighters best efforts. We need a succession of significant storms to put them out - not just one. For now at least the weather is cooling down....

Just posting brief message here to turn off notifications. Will check back in the fall; hopefully the weather pattern starts making a positive change, this summer is not good . Always appreciate those who post here....

Just about a week ago CFS was trending to a wet/cold cold August for the southwest, and now they are saying the entire west will be warm/dry for August. So what is to be believed now? I’m sorry I do not place a lot of stock in the longer range models

I guess we shouldn’t be surprised by this lack of precipitation . Almost the entire state is now in some level of drought, some of it pretty severe....

Thanks Raindance. That’s the way it goes - the models giveth and then the models taketh away. I should learn not to get bent out of shape about model runs but I seem to anyway. It just seems more often than not the cooler/wetter runs do not verify, and the drier/warm ones do....

As of today Fort Collins sits at .11” for July. Barring any additional rain the next few days, this would make July 2020 the third driest July in recorded weather history - with 1939 being the driest (0) and 1931 and 2002 tied for second (.07). Last week at this time it looked promising that the SW monsoon might kick into gear - we all know how that’s turned out . As others here have posted the 2020 SW monsoon is a flop, at least in northern CO.

Thanks Raindance for your great information. I’m also hoping for a wet August here on the front range. Doesn’t that seem like an unlikely outcome though given that the monsoon is largely a no-show?

Hey thanks. Good to hear there was at least a little rain. Based on what Raindance is saying about what’s ahead for the West, if Denver is just at 63% YTD it seems highly likely you’ll finish the year well below average. The Fort Collins area is in about the same boat, and southern CO is in the worst shape. In this era on the CO front range an above average month of precipitation is hard to come by, let alone a year. The summer months in particular have become very hot and dry in recent years. This pattern sets in June or July (fortunately the last two June’s have been better) and doesn’t let up until mid-October or so.

We did have a feeble attempt at a thunderstorm a bit ago here in the Bellvue area. It did wet the ground a little and then high winds dried it up in about 2 seconds. I don’t know how else to put it this weather sucks

Yes very interesting to see this - no doubt the low temp due to the utter lack of moisture in the air now. Sad to see the entire state getting engulfed in drought now. Right now reminds me of the year 2012 when large chunks of Colorado forests burned (in fact as I type this I can look up the mountain and see burn scars from that year). I hope I’m wrong but am very concerned about the effects this summer heat wave will bring - if you believe what you read (I don’t always) this pattern will persist all summer. I pray the experts are wrong about this!

Not much good news with our weather pattern these days. On the Bouldercast web site they are talking about the severity of the heat wave, which seems to be centered on Colorado. Also severe drought in southern Colorado that is now creeping north. Also it appears that the Southwest US monsoon will be late or nonexistent (according to Bouldercast). Then this fall La Niña is supposed to get established which tends to be dry in southern and eastern Colorado. Oh boy - things turn quickly don’t they ?

Thanks Chinook, appreciate the weather stats. My location (near Lory State Park NW of Fort Collins) also had pretty good rainfall for June. As for this last snow season we had an abundance here in the northern foothills - in the 110”+ range. Despite my hopes to the contrary (one can always hope), I’m getting the distinct feeling the summer will now heat up and dry out. This has been the pattern for most of the last 20 years (2004 and 2009 stand out as exceptions). At least June was reasonable though.... Coincidentally, this was also about the timeframe the Atlantic (AMO) shifted to its warm phase, where it’s mostly been since. If that AMO would switch to a cool phase that might help cool the summers around here (and elsewhere). That’s one theory at least..... Another thing that has been noticeable the last several years is the lack of any robust monsoon pattern the second part of the summer (I’m talking about the front range). I honestly don’t know why this is the case, I’ve just noticed it.

After a pretty decent May, at least here in the foothills NW of Fort Collins, thunderstorms typical of early June have been noticeably absent. If we don’t get some rain soon, our next hope will be for the monsoon pattern to kick in mid-July. At least that’s the typical pattern, however it seems it has been a while since we’ve had a robust monsoon pattern in this area in July/August. Here’s hoping we don’t see the hot/dry summer pattern that has dominated many recent years. Maybe this is the year we get a decent monsoon showing .

Our house southwest of Bellvue in the foothills had 10” on the ground yesterday morning. It snowed off and on during the day yesterday but not much more accumulation. I’ve kind of lost track of our season total so far but we’ve had our share. I would say 100” +|- 10%.

I agree great moisture from this storm! I’m in the foothills northwest of Fort Collins - we got about 8.5” of snow and pretty good rain before the snow started (probably .5 - 1.0 “) This storm was just perfect - great moisture but not an excessive amount of snow/ damage that people just need to deal with right now.

Gift certificates are a great idea. My wife and I are doing what we can to support local restaurants in the FC/LaPorte area. We can purchase certificates or do take-out.

Thanks Chinook for those stats - impressive for the first couple weeks of February, and kind makes up for the blah January

Thanks Chinook, that latest snow (at least for me) was a surprise. Just curious: what do you estimate your snow total is so far this month?

Good to hear 9.5” is a good amount of snow!

Not a bust where I’m at in the foothills SW of Bellvue (above Horsetooth Res). Between 11-12” total from this storm and happy to see it. I'm estimating 65”+ 8at our place so far this season - a lot of it in October & November (30” from the big storm before Thanksgiving). After a very dry January I say keep it coming

I’m a recovering weatherholic myself and I definitely agree with you, this has been one boring winter so far. I’ve been in Colorado a long time. To give some perspective, IMHO the 1970’s and 80’s were in another league when it comes to cold and snow on the front range (just peruse the weather records for Denver back then). The 1990’s were less so, and since about 2000 cold and snowy winters have far and few between. If you believe in longer term weather cycles/patterns repeating (I do), a pattern more reminiscent of the ‘70s and ‘80s could return. But if and when - nobody truly knows.

Thanks for the post!

Good morning all. I have mainly stayed away from weather forums since this exceedingly, boringly stretch of weather started in December (after a great Oct|Nov pattern). Hard to believe after such a great fall that every storm now misses the front range. Thankfully our mountains are getting regular, albeit smaller, storms. I’m just interested in any explanations as to how/why the pattern changed so drastically for the front range, and the prospects to get back to some semblance of stormiest in the weeks and months ahead? BTW I was about to suggest we cancel the winter thread and move to a spring thread, but I don’t want to over-react....