mayjawintastawm

Jan snowfall 6.4", season to date 13.4".

Now that we don't have La Nina to blame anymore, any idea when this seemingly permanent, blocking ridge will go away? Always seems like "a pattern change is anticipated in about two weeks"... while my relatives in MA freeze their butts off. Daffodils are sprouting and a few birds are building nests.

The small squall had a direct impact on the outcome of the game... boo. My gym teachers and high school coaches in New England always said not to pass the ball when it's snowing hard. Guess that message didn't make it out here. Cold now. Haven't measured yet but guessing about an inch after 0.5" yesterday. My relatives in MA are getting absolutely pummeled. EDIT: just for numbers' sake, picked up 1.2" to add to the 0.5" from Saturday.

Yeah, weird for sure. The last several years, in fact, anytime a polar vortex lobe breaks off and heads south in North America, it seems like the axis is always between 75 and 95 W. That's a pretty narrow band. I wonder why. Incidentally, that is probably the largest winter storm watch I've ever seen in terms of sheer land area.

2.3" this event. 11.7" on the season. Hope Feb-May delivers!

Reviving my Dust Bowl musing from a couple weeks ago. Looking to see if there are any parallels in patterns between winter 33-34 and this winter. In Denver, Dec 33 was #1 warmest and this year #2, Jan 34 was #2 warmest (and the beginning of Denver's warmest year on record) and this year so far is #1. I kind of hope not, because 1934 was the kind of year you read about in history books, and not in a good way... I'm sure sea surface temperatures were not a thing yet in the 1930s, nor was PNA etc. but I wonder about other things they did measure. EDIT: Holy crap, I found something. (This is why atmospheric science is SO important...) La Nina from 90+ years ago. https://www.nasa.gov/news-release/nasa-top-story-source-of-1930s-dust-bowl-drought-in-tropical-waters-nasa-finds-march-18-2004/#:~:text=Scientists used SST data acquired,storms blew across the U.S.

2.4” here, almost all 1-6 am.

Pretty soon we’ll be driving ourselves crazy looking at models that predict yesterdays snowstorm that never happened.

I think HRRR only goes through 18 hours ( so 21Z, 2 PM MT) and NAM is pretty consistent wih its 12z run (18z was prob an outlier) - looking at the 00z ones I could find, not much has changed except the GFS is still heavier than the others.

I'm guessing 18z models and things I don't have access to upped the moisture a bit. Just looked at the NWS updated forecast, and we're forecast to get 0.39" WE and about 4.5 inches of snow, and we are a little too far north/too low to be in the watch area. No updated discussion- I've noticed that AFDs are not updated as often as they used to be, guessing staffing is the issue. So we'll see. In any case, I expect the Post's forecast of 1-12 inches will verify.

Have to agree... hopefully we're wrong, but experience shows... The Denver Post this AM has some predictions that had me laughing out loud, along the lines of "Tonight, there's a 100% chance of darkness." Copied/pasted: 1 to 11 inches in Aurora, Golden, Lakewood and Littleton 1 to 12 inches in Centennial 1 to 13 inches in Parker and Castle Rock

Well, it was second warmest going by whatever was the official site at the time. https://www.weather.gov/bou/Denver_Monthly_Extremes. 2025 is in there now as #2. I'll have to look into 1933-34- historically a very important period, as the wetter decades that led many to farm in eastern CO abruptly ended as the Dust Bowl began, in the middle of the Great Depression. What an anomaly! I guess we could have it worse. Hopefully we don't get a 1934 this year. Would be interesting to look at analogs.

So, climate… OND this year at DEN had a total of 0.53” of liquid and Dec is the second warmest since 1872. I still wonder about the validity of the #1 in 1933 as it was so much higher than any up to that point. Happy new year!

1.0" here. Nice and cold, pretty morning, roads awful as they should be.

Seems like if you bet on the driest model you can find 24 hours out from any given precip event, you'll do well 4 out of 5 times. Hopefully it will at least get cold, so my neighbor across the street who started a new lawn in September doesn't have to mow it on New Year's Eve.

All day I couldn't stop thinking "Mele Kalikimaka is the thing to say..." as I wore shorts to the dog park.

DEN is now +11.2 degrees on the month, with just over a week left. Wow. #1 warmest December was in 1933, and we're closing in on that. It's notable that that year's December was over 3 degrees warmer than the existing record at the time. I don't know much about historical climatology in the area, other than the Dust Bowl followed from 1934-36 (yikes) and some measurements were unreliable. Anyone with more insight?

I've never seen one, anyplace, ever. Anyone else?

My rooftop PWS is also not high enough to register wind speeds accurately, but it was up to 33 MPH several times last night and in the past its readings are roughly 40-50% of what the nearby airport records so I can safely say we had 60 mph gusts, which are the highest recorded since we've lived here (15 years). Fortunately we had a lot of tree work done this year and no damage other than a holiday dinosaur in the front yard that broke into pieces. We have friends in Yuma County who were absolutely terrified by the fires last night, all sparked by downed power poles when the wind gusts topped 70 mph with the frontal passage around 9 PM last night. Fortunately, between farmers with tractors and disc plows and what other ground-based resources they had, they were able to contain all but one within a few hours. The threat isn't over yet, but neither do they have power yet.

Noting the drought severity and coverage slowly growing east of the Divide. We're now in D2 (roughly between Cherry Creek and the South Platte, and south of Denver proper). The next couple weeks don't look to help that at all. https://www.drought.gov/states/colorado

Saw this and thought "GFS is hallucinating again", now I can't get that map and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" out of my head. Groovy.

3.5" here at 10 AM. This has been a very typical light upslope storm, and also typical in that the foothills north and west of town got the most (so far), as opposed to south. Winds were a little more east than north. Really well predicted! Edit: 5.0" for a final at 8 PM.

Maybe we'll only get an inch, but it'll be plenty to cause a zillion accidents Wed morning. Everyone's brain fell out over the summer. Tires? What tires?

0.8" here! Buried. Just finished shoveling.

There were 1-2 a year or more ago, but haven't heard anything from them in a long time. Feel free to start a thread! Could be interesting, with atmospheric rivers etc. as opposed to the yawn of a fall/winter we're having in the Rockies so far.