mayjawintastawm

Is it just me and social media, or has the East Coast had more than its share of winter epics the last 6-7 years? When I lived in MA, we had a big storm every 2-3 years, but I don't remember having anywhere near this many. Plus there has been a lot more cold Ohio Valley and east the past few years, that's certain.

Banding is nuts. 1 inch here at 1015 PM, looks like places less than 10 miles south and west got 5-6. Mountains even more impressive, with 3 and a half inches at Loveland Ski area but a foot just a few miles away. Lake effect indeed. Maybe the Chatfield Reservoir effect? 

EDIT: snow stake at bottom of Loveland Ski area says 8 inches. The SNOTEL site had 3 and a half. So ??

Very nice! We got 4.5" here, a good surprise. It's weird because there is a new COCORAHS station just a mile SW of me that measured 8". No way we got any more than 6" anywhere in the yard, even by "ski area measuring technique". 

Honestly, I don't know if this ongoing fire situation was anything anyone could "prepare for": 

 - High density, essentially urban to suburban area (this was not isolated homes surrounded by burnable vegetation) just downwind of foothills/prairie

 - Open space, mainly grass, to the west (not forested, just prairie) where it started

 - Driest 6 months in recorded weather history for the immediate area

 - Winds coming down the canyons with widespread, prolonged gusts over 80 MPH- a little ember can go miles with that kind of wind

 - NWS assessment as late as 3 AM today was mixed as far as high wind threat- the AFDs told you how much trouble they were having with their decisions

AND IT'S FREAKING DECEMBER 30!!

Just an enormous tragedy.

8 hours ago, Chinook said:

I guess the 500mb predictions changed just enough overnight to have 4 major models predict a bunch of snow for NE Colorado. I don't know if the big change will really be accurate.

This could be fun, compared to what we've had so far. Could triple the <1 inch we've had season to date... even if we take 50% of the predicted QPF 48 hours out, which was on target for many of last year's storms. If I need to shovel for more than 20 minutes, I'll call it a win. Then again, this could be one of those 25:1 "storms" where you can clear the snow in a moment with a leaf blower.

24 minutes ago, ValpoVike said:

Something really strange is in the air today.  There are tiny moist particles falling from the sky...I actually had to turn on my windshield wipers to push it aside. 

Danger, Will Robinson... it's dihydrogen monoxide. Very hazardous.

Finally something to talk about in the mountains, and cause for celebration for skiers in the next two weeks. 12-18 inches through Christmas at the Summit County areas, more as you go NW and SW, and possibility of more next week. ValpoVike, keep us posted! (any other posters on this board in the mountains?)

6 hours ago, ValpoVike said:

That's really quite interesting.  Up here in the Larimer foothills, there seems to be a real lack of climatological data however my experience over the past 8 years is that mid to late January is typically the coldest.  This is very similar to what I experienced in my years of living in Ohio and Indiana.  I wonder if there is something inherently different (altitude, LOL) in the short distance between Loveland and 7k+ feet up...or if the past 8 years have generally been anomalous up here.  Not the first or last time that I wish there was good climate data up here.

That is really interesting. When I lived in MA (most of my life) it was sometimes even a bit later, like end of January, as the ocean tempered things a little earlier in the season. The Denver climatology curve is really dead-flat in terms of average temps from now through mid-January. Anecdotally, some of the lowest temps IMBY occur later in the season (early Feb) when there is more snow cover, but are balanced by slightly higher highs.

Late post: 0.9" snow Friday morning. First of the season. Let 'er rip... 

If I had a nickel for every time I saw this in the BOU AFD, I wouldn't need the CARES Act...

our snowfall forecast for the
Denver metro continues to decrease as most guidance has trended
much drier. 

Yup, we dropped 21 degrees (from 58 to 37) from 3 to 4 PM with the ever-interesting "BLDU" at APA, another 9 degrees the hour after that, and now it's in the upper teens.

On 12/3/2021 at 3:24 PM, n1vek said:

Where that Fri-Sat low ejects looks nice. Still a long way to go, but the wind field should be decent for upslope?

 

And also (tell me if I am wrong), a lot of the long-range models (GFS, Euro) account for terrain variability, but not nearly as much as the mesoscale models do. Curious if in marginal moisture situations this results in some of the ranges being underdone? Maybe I am just being a weenie here. 

Yeah, looking OK but so far away...

My sense is that the QPF is not so much underdone with mesoscale features as that the variability is underdone. Commonly, the typical upslope places (along the Peak-to-Peak, Boulder) get more than predicted, while downsloping places (often Fort Collins, CO Spgs) get less than predicted.

Today I looked at the July-Nov climate data for most reporting stations in AZ, NM and CO. The only place that got less precipitation than Denver was Yuma, AZ. How about that.

As my wife's Brooklyn relatives would say, looks like a flying sorcerer.

I'm beginning to think "above normal precipitation" means a relative humidity of 50%. Heck, I'd be excited for a little frost at this point.

On 11/12/2021 at 9:39 PM, TugHillMatt said:

So when you guys get these warm periods, do you have any flowers/plants that rebloom/start budding, or are most of the plants of an adaptation that they just go dormant for good for the winter? I would imagine you might have some deciduous plants that don't lose their vegetation completely even during the winter?

It takes a certain length of time of freezing weather (? weeks) to reset the clock on most plants. They are vulnerable if it freezes very hard (<15 F soon after the 60s) in the fall, or if there is a warmup followed by a hard freeze in April/May. This happens with some regularity. Between that and chronic dryness, the Front Range is a tough place to be a tree. On the bright side, this past Spring's moisture and lack of hard freezes produced some of the best fruit crops in many years... apples from our tree are still in the fridge.

Also- these conversations are pretty great and the nerd index is an order of magnitude higher than most other subforums, just sayin'...

On 11/4/2021 at 6:58 PM, raindancewx said:

This is for Denver for 1931-2021, July-Oct. Impressive that you're actually running much drier than Albuquerque. We've had over 3 inches of rain in that time frame. When I ran snow totals for my forecast this year, it did look kind of below average for the Front Range cities, with Western Colorado doing much better generally.

Denver: July-October 1931-2021

1	2021-10-31	0.97	0
2	1962-10-31	1.24	0
3	1948-10-31	1.45	0
4	1964-10-31	1.58	0
5	1934-10-31	1.73	0
6	2016-10-31	1.83	0
7	1939-10-31	1.88	0
8	1943-10-31	2.07	0
9	2003-10-31	2.12	0
10	1978-10-31	2.32	0
11	2020-10-31	2.49	0
12	1950-10-31	2.53	0
13	1937-10-31	2.69	0
14	1933-10-31	2.92	0
15	1944-10-31	2.93	0
16	1994-10-31	3.00	0
17	2018-10-31	3.13	0
18	1932-10-31	3.15	0
19	1952-10-31	3.19	0
20	1981-10-31	3.20	0

Thanks raindancewx! How/where do you get these data? Would love to play around with them some.

Thinking climatologically: how to get data for the driest 4-month, 5-month, 6-month periods for reporting stations? DEN had <1 inch of rain the past 4 months combined- this has got to be up there, if such a record exists.

On 10/25/2021 at 9:34 PM, mayjawintastawm said:

It's been 41 days since Denver saw 0.1" or more in a day, and 123 days since we've seen 0.25" or more. Any bets on when the next of these will happen? I'll wager 11/7 for 0.1" and 11/25 for 0.25", mainly wild guesses (that may be optimistic).

and good to be wrong... though DEN still has its streak going, most of the metro area saw a nice 0.1-0.2" last evening. Felt downright weird walking around in it.

It's been 41 days since Denver saw 0.1" or more in a day, and 123 days since we've seen 0.25" or more. Any bets on when the next of these will happen? I'll wager 11/7 for 0.1" and 11/25 for 0.25", mainly wild guesses (that may be optimistic).

12 hours ago, R. Venson said:

Hi, if this topic is not appropriate for your forum please remove, or tell me to bugger off.

 

I am from North Carolina and follow the forums for that region closely for hurricane season and during potential winter weather events. I am not a learned person in meteorology, but love reading the forums when big events are forthcoming. There are a ton of highly educated/informed people that give great insight.

 

The insight is why I'm here in your forum.  My family is looking to go to Steamboat the week before Christmas this year to ski and I've been told the snow pack/conditions can be iffy that early in the season. Do any of you have any suggestions/ thoughts on the long range forecast this year for how things are setting up for snow from now to the middle of December in that area of Colorado? I can't seem to find any real good information on it. Thanks for any thoughts you may be able to share on anticipated weather for that area!

 

Heck, I got a bunch of days in at Beech Mountain in early December many years ago, not bad really. Wet oak leaves are as slippery as packed powder if you play it right.

Best resource IMHO is opensnow.com for mountain-specific weather and long range hints (that you may have to pay for, but may be worth it). Biggest thing about early snow here is that Oct-Jan is the driest time of year in CO. The big storms typically hit in Feb-April. But the 'Boat is good about making snow, to justify its $200/day price tag for a ticket.

On 9/26/2021 at 8:46 PM, n1vek said:

I am glad we are back to reading raindance posts tracking Kamchatka lows. It has been awhile. 

Here's to the end of a long dry spell, maybe???

0.8" of rain at DEN in the 92 days going back to 6/29. If there were more trees around here, I'd worry about fires. And I'm flying back from the East coast on 10/20, so that tracks pretty well.

Hopefully tomorrow (or maybe today) will be the last 90 degree temp of 2021 in Denver. 

We have lived here for 12 summers. 11 of them (all but 2014) have been in the top 20 for most 90 degree days in Denver. 

2 hours ago, finnster said:

I don’t keep track of this, but I wonder when is the last date there’s actually been a below normal temp this summer on the northern front range?  One thing I’ve noticed about this and recent summers here:  anytime we are fortunate enough to get a shower, it must then be immediately followed by yet another hot/dry spell that negates any benefits from said shower. 
 

 

Denver was 2 degrees below normal on August 21. Cheyenne was 2 degrees below normal on August 29. I couldn't find any reporting stations with climate normals on the northern Front Range in CO.

And 97 today, 3 record highs in a row. The low this AM was only a couple degrees cooler than the record high min too. September is the new July, only drier. I wonder if the hydrology folks will start talking about flash drought, though many places on the Eastern Plains have had some soakers to hold that off.