mayjawintastawm

9 hours ago, raindancewx said:

My guess is enough moisture will come up from the south to slow down the warm up on a couple of days, at least for parts of Eastern Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona. The models favored strong monsoon activity over the mountains of old Mexico in July, so any mechanism that can bring the moisture up efficiently should bring relief to particularly hot highs, even if it is just via cloudiness.

The GFS is pretty wet for eastern Colorado in particular over the next five days.

Would love to see that but I'm very skeptical. Dry has been generally winning out- anytime moisture threatens to increase it gets squashed.

There is a flash flood warning for my exact town. Apparently 1.5 inches of rain have fallen. I go outside and the ground is bone dry. Where’s the big umbrella in the sky?!? Grr, the past two weeks we should have had 1-2 inches and have had 0.02”.

On 6/23/2020 at 6:58 PM, raindancewx said:

Rained today in Albuquerque. Now up to 1.07" for the month. One of the wettest June in the last 30 years, fourth I think - with a week to go yet.

For the past 90 years, the wettest Junes are all 1.40" and higher. Will be interesting to see if we can get there. Chance of rain again tomorrow. 

My analogs had 1.30" or so for June, so pretty good really, although most was in early June, and I thought it would arrive in late June.

this is a weird pattern. North of Denver is OK, Albuquerque and south is OK, in between is an absolutely cracking drought. Persistence!!

Would be nice. I was thinking this AM about how few thunderstorms and how little hail (I know I should not wish for hail!!) we've had so far in June. Should have planted the tomatoes earlier!

Have to say I'm quite done with this wind... broken branches on Sat, more broken branches on Sun, and still more last night. The rain was great, but 3 straight days of 50+ mph gusts (peak around 70 on Sat) is enough. If I were a tree, I'd pull up my roots and move. Come to think of it, a neighbor's healthy 45 foot spruce did just that during the derecho. (sorry, no pics because it was on top of their house)

Storms holding together as they come off the foothills this PM, with a bit of a Denver cyclone and DPs in the mid 40s. One SW of Castle Rock looks like it's starting to rotate. Anybody down there seeing anything off to the west? Could be some surprise hail down by Larkspur/Monument shortly. Tis the season!

EDIT: Fizzling 20 minutes later.But one NE of there was briefly severe warned for hail.

Most places in the Front Range area getting around an inch of rain this afternoon and early evening, so welcome! Lots of places getting snow above 8000 feet, and accumulating in the mountain towns. I don't think I've seen snow falling outside of the high mountains on or after Memorial Day weekend since we moved here 10 years ago.

Actually felt good this AM with DPs in the low 50s. Now it's back to windy and nose-desiccating.

Inside and not at home, but will see how the yard looks later.

EDIT: Dry. Less than 0.1" of rain since 4/23.

EDIT 2: Finally broke the streak about 8:20 with just under 0.2" rain and a little hail to 0.6". Nice.

4 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

This is my first spring in Colorado.  The thunder just seems so much more intense here than on the east coast, even if the storm itself is minor.  Last two nights we've had house shaker thunder claps.  You get those once per year back east.

You get those nightly here between Memorial Day and late June. I don't know exactly why it is so much louder, maybe drier or less dense air transmits the sound better. One of my dogs absolutely hates it.

We've been quite dry through all this- only 0.02" of rain in almost 2 weeks during what is one of the wetter parts of the year climatologically.

On 4/18/2020 at 7:26 PM, smokeybandit said:

The AFA graduation was delayed, which caused delays to the flyover.

We have friends in the business who were updating us- delays, plus rain showers and low level turbulence, made for a less than ideal tour with a couple shortcuts toward the end. Still, they did what they could before they bugged out to Nellis. A 7 hour mission in a fighter with multiple midair refuelings makes for a tough day!

On 4/18/2020 at 3:08 PM, Chinook said:

So that didn't happen. Low temps of 6 -14 in Loveland.

Yeah, down to 8 F one morning and 12 F another one last week, with others in the mid teens. Amazing sustained cold for this time of year. Unfortunately, spring is as gray as fall was after 10/12. All the blossoms on the trees, even those that were not really out yet, are dead. Maybe a few apple trees in shadier locations will recover, hopefully. 

And edit: got 3" more this PM so 4" total on this storm, not a total bust after all. With the 4.2" the other day, that makes 11.0" for the month and 89.1" for the season. Pretty sure it's the snowiest "winter season" since we arrived in 2010.

BTW, I heard that the majority of the peach crop in Palisade was lost this week. That REALLY stinks. Best produce in Colorado.

Good for you Chinook and ValpoVike! We are busting. Snow didn't begin till 6 AM and it snowed for 2+ hours accumulating 1 inch, then changed to freezing drizzle. What a difference a few miles makes!

It has to do with air pressure. Air moving from a higher to a lower elevation compresses, making the air warmer. Many times the difference is on the order of 5 degrees F per 1000 feet, which can create quite a difference- for example, if the Continental Divide averages around 12,000 feet in CO and the Plains are around 5000 feet, that's a 35 degree difference just from compression. There are of course other factors, but that's the basic reason.

As to the part of your question about why it's warmer than the air that has been sitting around at a given elevation for a while, it has to do with cool air sinking. At night, if it isn't windy, cooler air will layer out. So if it's 20 F in Denver on a calm morning, then a westerly wind kicks up from the mountains, you get warmer, compressed air invading the cooler air. Many times the temp can go up 30 F in a couple hours with the combination of a Chinook wind and mixing the layers out. This time of year, you can get what we call "two-coat days": perhaps 18 F (winter coat) at 6 AM,  50 F (spring coat) at 9 AM, and 68 F (no coat) at 2 PM. 

Then again, you can get 8 F within a couple of days after 70 F (this happened Sat PM-Tues AM at Centennial Airport) when cold air rushes down the lee side of the mountains. Tough place to be a plant!!

2" at my place by 7 AM today- very fluffy. Couldn't be more than 0.1" WE total, probably more like 0.06". Hoping for more to moisten things up. Vegetation doesn't like to be freeze-dried.

15 hours ago, Chinook said:

The ECMWF/GFS/Canadian are starting to agree on snow for Sunday and Monday, possible lows in the mid-20's Tuesday morning. It's unseasonable, but I guess there are no leaves on the trees just yet.

Long as it doesn't get below 20 it should be fine... the buds are starting to come out and it would be nice to see flowers and fruit, especially this year. We've had too many 15 degree mornings in April the past few years.

2.8" new at our house, quite fluffy. Most fell at 18-21 degrees. Good thing the buds haven't quite popped yet.

1.5" overnight, for a March total of 12.9" and 78.1" on the season. Approaching a real winter!

We ended up with 9.4" of heavy wet snow after at least a quarter inch of rain. Great moisture!

We had 4 inches of paste accumulate from 8:30 AM to 1 PM. Will measure again after getting home from work. I'd guess probably another 4, just looking out the window.

6:30 AM: moderate rain, 37.1 F

8:30 AM: changed to light wet snow, 33.7 F

Right. My place now has a "winter storm warning for 4 to 10 inches" with 3.4 inches total at about 34 F predicted, and Castle Rock has a "Blizzard warning for 6 to 12 inches" with 4.7 inches total at about 32 F predicted. Kinda weird. 

EDIT, 5 PM: they must have been updating the different forecast products because they're now in line (7" here and 8" in Castle Rock). Still will be interesting. Historically, we change to snow sooner than predicted about 3/4 of the time. Gonna be one of those "heart attack storms" shoveling 8:1 density snow.

On 3/16/2020 at 5:14 PM, Chinook said:

I guess you can still get a burger to go...

 

 

Yes- I'm planning to find the places with the best takeout and hopefully help prevent them from closing when this $&&t really hits hard.

Would be nice. Weather excitement around here has been somewhat dryslotted lately, other than the rain the other night, which all fell between midnight and 6 AM so was not exciting at all.