Mercurial Posted February 21, 2016 Share Posted February 21, 2016 We went up to Lake Louise and Banff today on a spur of the moment type trip. Left Whitefish at 7am and rolled into Chateau Lake Louise at about 11am. Went Nordic skiing on the lake -- cross that one off my bucket list at least. You can tell it's been quite warm throughout the lower elevations of Banff, but there's nothing but three feet of beautiful wintry powder here at Lake Louise. Temps stayed below freezing all day despite torching in Calgary and the Banff townsite. 6,000 ft and 51N will do wonders Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 21, 2016 Author Share Posted February 21, 2016 Your pics from Banff look like areas at about 10,000ft around here, with steeper mountainsides. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercurial Posted February 22, 2016 Share Posted February 22, 2016 Thanks... Banff really spoonfeeds the alpine scenery to tourists... no need to hike to high elevations or anything haha. Downside to that accessibility is the swarms of tourists. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NoVaWx Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Took a drive in the mountains and snowing pretty good from Idaho Springs on west. Waiting for it to get here. I'll take it as a positive that there is not much other discussion regarding 1-3" as in the mid Atlantic this would've been a huge thread by now. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 23, 2016 Author Share Posted February 23, 2016 I saw some big clumps of flakes (1/4" wide or better) with temps above freezing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 1.5" here, roads just a little slushy. Meh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConiferMtnMan Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Didn't take any measurements, but it was about calf high near Pine Junction this morning. I'd guess 8 or 9". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Didn't take any measurements, but it was about calf high near Pine Junction this morning. I'd guess 8 or 9". Yeah, I saw video on the news this morning from your area. Looked like you got a nice pasting down there. Up here, only 3". Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ConiferMtnMan Posted February 23, 2016 Share Posted February 23, 2016 Yeah, I saw video on the news this morning from your area. Looked like you got a nice pasting down there. Up here, only 3".Thank goodness. We were starting to get too dry, so I'm glad to see the moisture. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted February 24, 2016 Share Posted February 24, 2016 Yeah, this one was a textbook example of upslope moisture that gathered steam only in the last 50 miles before the mountains and was deep enough to get to 10K but not so deep to get snow all the way to the Divide. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 25, 2016 Author Share Posted February 25, 2016 There really is not any one particular day with a western trough on the GFS ensemble means. There are a few ensemble members with a Rockies trough at hour 300 (March 9). The 06z GFS has some quick snow for northeast CO on March 1st. I wouldn't necessarily think this is a big deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 Map of snow totals from a few days ago Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 Map of Western basin snow-water-equivalents. As for you Mercurial, I am sure you are probably right in mentioning low snowpack in northern Montana. this map doesn't show super low values though. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 Warm West, cold East. This is quite a striking difference between different areas of the continent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted February 26, 2016 Share Posted February 26, 2016 Nice new discussion over on Weather5280 related to teleconnections and medium to long range models, pointing toward the possibility of a cooler and wetter March. Or not. But maybe so. But, maybe not. But we can always hope, unless we can't. But maybe we can. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 26, 2016 Author Share Posted February 26, 2016 Forecast hours 276 through 360 could get interesting, but I wouldn't pin my hopes on anything at this point. Definitely not much to talk about in 10 days. The 12z Euro hints at a Rockies trough in 11 days (276 hours) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 Do we buy this? My March idea was something like this: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vandy Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 It's remarkable that the Western watersheds are in as good of shape as they are given the terrible February we've had. The strong early season has given us a good buffer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 Do we buy this? My March idea was something like this: I was just looking at the CPC 1-month lead precip. outlook on the CPC web page. There are green 33%, 40% and 50% contours, and also brown 33%, 40%, and 50% contours. What in the world does this mean? If you have a green 33% contour over your city, don't you have a 67% chance of being below normal? Then why is it green? I tell you, CPC could learn something from people who look at the the recent past, look at the dynamical models, and most importantly look at the analog months/years and make a long-range forecast that clearly describes what the forecast anomaly -will- be. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted February 27, 2016 Share Posted February 27, 2016 CPC splits things into thirds, so 33%+ to them is "favored" or plurality forecasting. It is kind of dumb though. Guidance more than a forecast. I'm very conflicted on March - it's pretty rare to have a wet March here without a wet October prior to it, but a lot of the other signals are there. We also had 0.6" precip last Feb 26-28, which maybe nature counts as "March" which means maybe my idea of 8 dry Marches in a row doesn't hold much water. Some dry Febs do flip to wet Marches here, but it's not super common. The MJO is going to make it to phase eight, but may not get into phase 1,2 or 3 in March. Feb 54, 59, 88 were all almost precip-free Febs in Albuquerque followed by less dry to wet Marches in El Nino years. Of the six strongest DJF El Ninos since 1930, four did have dry Februarys here...and they all flipped to wet Marches. Strong ONI values in Sept-Nov lead to dry Mays out here - but they tend to be wet Marches - so I really do hope March pans out. The southern Jet is probably necessary for a wet March here, the northern Jet storms have all been pretty dry here this winter. So if that breaks through the death ridge I think we're good. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 It's almost the end of winter, at least DJF winter. Here are the last 90 day precip % of normal and temp departure from normal. Before this winter started, I would have bet $10 that southern California and Arizona would have above-average precip, but they did not. Lots of the country was more than 2F above normal, but the Southwest was generally closer to average. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted February 27, 2016 Author Share Posted February 27, 2016 Bismarck ND, welcome to summer! Conditions at: KBIS observed 27 February 2016 19:52 UTC Temperature: 22.2°C (72°F) Dewpoint: -3.9°C (25°F) [RH = 17%] Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 March is starting to look kind of amazing in terms of moisture... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted March 1, 2016 Author Share Posted March 1, 2016 You mean like this with 80" of snow in California in 16 days? Or are you talking about analogs again? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
raindancewx Posted March 1, 2016 Share Posted March 1, 2016 The shorter term (1-3 weeks) outlooks look pretty good. My weather analogs worked very well for Oct-Jan in ABQ but began to break down in Feb for precip/temps/snow. We had 0.05" precip. Huge Feb warmth was only shown in one year - Feb 95. Was expecting +25%-+50% for precip in DJF - we ended up at only +9% in Albuquerque. Not expecting a big May this year, but with eight dry Marches in a row, and the onslaught of moisture apparently coming to at least CA March does look good to me for moisture. Had been expecting +50-100% for precip in ABQ in MAM but have lowered that to +25% to +50%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
27596WXNUT Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Hey Mountain West friends from the Southeast. Wife and I along with friends are headed to Missoula, Whitefish, etc around the 19th. Any insight on the long range? Any local weather guys on Twitter or Facebook I might follow to watch? I know what to look for here in the southeast for good storms(snow or rain) but not sure about out that way. Thanks!!!! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercurial Posted March 2, 2016 Share Posted March 2, 2016 Check yer PMs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted March 3, 2016 Author Share Posted March 3, 2016 There seems to be some potential for snow on the Front Range on Monday. The first shortwave from the western trough system seems to be a little more vigorous and closer to Denver. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted March 4, 2016 Share Posted March 4, 2016 Hope so. Anybody notice just how incredibly dry it's been lately? DEN has had no measurable precip in 31 days and Centennial only 0.01". Spring will start out like a rock if we don't get something soon. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted March 4, 2016 Author Share Posted March 4, 2016 Mayjawintastawm, you posted this on March 29, 2012. How odd that is so relevant to your last post! --- OK, as we watch a brown Spring emerge and reflect way back to February 3rd, our last 0.1" or greater and over a foot of snow in Denver:Opinions on next measurable, next 0.1" or greater, and next 0.5" or greater (all water equivalent) in a calendar day at KDEN? Here goes, for starters:0.01" or greater: 4/70.1" or greater: 4/250.5" or greater: 5/27OK, so call me a pessimist. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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