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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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THAT was snort my coffee funny. :)

-4 at my house this AM. Last night coming home from work crossing the Cherry Creek Dam the moon illuminated some fantastic sea smoke (or whatever they call it inland) on the lake. This AM there was new ice covering most of the lake. Last year it was Jan 10th before this happened!

It's always important to seek shelter or get the video camera when you see several funnel clouds. Also put on that winter coat and don't slip on the ice when filming.

"Sea smoke" is normal terminology over the oceans or Great Lakes and "steam fog" can be used in general.

Still expecting 8 to 11 degrees F below normal for the next 7-8 days.

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I am taking a look at the models for 4-5 days in the future. It looks like a strong upper low will be in Arizona and kick out. The GFS at Dec. 14 (00z) to Dec 15 00z shows some promise for some snow, but it looks like this trough will kick out of the desert without any type of surface high or supply of upslope at 850mb. I am looking at the GFS 108 hour, valid Wed. Dec. 14 at 00z. Weak warm advection with south wind may keep us a bit above freezing. The 00z ECMWF does something different with the northern stream. It has the desert cut-off low kicking out and flooding the region with 850mb temps above freezing at 120hr and 144hr, actually not all that different from the GFS in that respect. This storm should provide the San Juan mountains with some decent snow.

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Not much action lately or any coming up for the metro area really. The mid range looks like the mountains may finally start getting in on the act a little more. That'll be good for the ski resorts with Christmas right around the corner.

Going all the way back to around last May, we seem to get 2-3 storms clustered in a week or two period and then nothing for a month or two. The monsoon weeks were an exception of course.

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I have about 3" on the ground. Yesterday we had dense fog with about 20 degrees, before sunrise.

KFNL 091135Z AUTO 00000KT M1/4SM OVC002 M06/M07 A3017 RMK AO1

This morning, there was good visibility, with about 15 degrees.

The Los Angeles cut-off that will happen in 2 days is hardly worth discussing, as mentioned in my last post. Things might be interesting in a week (12/17) but I won't put too much faith in one prediction. Looks like a shortwave dives far south through Nevada/Utah at that time. The latest ECMWF (12z) has this shortwave cutting off in central AZ, with -18C temps in Fort Collins, and cold air pouring down east of the Rockies quite quickly. Yikes.

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Looks like TWC is calling for a pretty decent snow Wednesday night into Thursday. Any insight from you guys is appreciated (I'm supposed to fly out Thursday to go see family on the east coast...)

The later your flight Thu the better, at this point. Looks like the heaviest snow will probably be about 6 am to 2 pm.

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Went from a high of 58 yesterday afternoon to temps in the mid 20s today. Light/moderate snow falling with about 1/2" new accumulation so far.

I actually had 4" from yesterday's storm which was a shock. But, I'll take it! Got down into the single digists this morning. This has been a great month....I've had snow on the ground practically every single day.

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Looks like TWC is calling for a pretty decent snow Wednesday night into Thursday. Any insight from you guys is appreciated (I'm supposed to fly out Thursday to go see family on the east coast...)

Having flown out in a similar type event afew weeks ago,I'm thinking it will be harder to get to the airport than to get out once there. This sounds initially like a 3 incher for KDEN and more to the south (AGAIN!). I am always impressed with DIA's facility to handle snow with minimal delays... notwithstanding the delays on the front end with parking, security, etc!

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Here is the GFS snowfall, for what it's worth. I think several areas will see 5", including Fort Collins, but obviously the GFS has more than 0.5" of water content for many areas. I guess you should keep an eye on the radar and get to the airport between 8 and 10PM. Sometimes the first inch or two is the most slippery.

post-1182-0-28271900-1324499111.png

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That bull's eye over SW Boulder County means I may have to take off work and ski Eldora tomorrow...

Relatives arrive from Atlanta this evening early. We have tickets to Loveland, planning on Friday (to allow them to acclimatize a teensy bit). If that bullseye scoots just a tiny bit SW I will be very, very happy!

:santa:

Wxjunkie, why not leave Monument around dinnertime, have a late dinner, and do some last minute shopping at the airport (or even the Aurora mall)?

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No reports yet? I've got about 2" as of 7:30. Came on strong, tapered off, absolutely dumped the last 30 minutes and now it seems to be tapering off again. Definitely the biggest flakes of the season (at least while I've been awake) here in SW Denver.

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Definitely hard to measure with all the drifts. I'd say I stepped in some 6" places and some over a foot deep, so I'll say we have 8" give or take an inch. It's definitely more snow than we've had here all season long. Looking at some estimated snow totals on weather.com, it looks like my area has been one of the bigger winners for places under 6k feet so far. About time with all those that hit the northern burbs harder earlier in the year :)

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