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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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It has been a crazy wet month here in the Oregon High Desert region.

 

Tons of snow in the Cascades, I think Mt Bachelor will be near or over a 100" base by the end of the month??  

 

 Big 15" powder snow storm here before Thanks giving, rain and snow seem to be here nearly every other day with no end in sight. I have had 26 " here at my home so far.  I only had 29" all of last winter so I expect to exceed that by Christmas.  From the NWS outlooks for JFM we better enjoy it while it lasts as it looks warm and dry in the new year.  

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strong cross-mountain 700mb wind flow- I wonder if the temperature will jump 20 degrees at nighttime with a downslope wind at my house.

 

High wind warning (west of I-25)

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* WINDS...WEST WINDS INCREASING TO 30 TO 50 MPH THIS EVENING.  GUSTS TO 80 MPH OVER THE MOUNTAINS AND WINDIER FOOTHILLS  LOCATIONS...WITH GUSTS OF 60 TO 75 MPH IN AREAS NEAR THE BASE  OF THE FOOTHILLS AND NEAR THE WYOMING BORDER.
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strong cross-mountain 700mb wind flow- I wonder if the temperature will jump 20 degrees at nighttime with a downslope wind at my house.

High wind warning (west of I-25)

---

* WINDS...WEST WINDS INCREASING TO 30 TO 50 MPH THIS EVENING.
  GUSTS TO 80 MPH OVER THE MOUNTAINS AND WINDIER FOOTHILLS
  LOCATIONS...WITH GUSTS OF 60 TO 75 MPH IN AREAS NEAR THE BASE
  OF THE FOOTHILLS AND NEAR THE WYOMING BORDER.

I'm heading to Fort Collins/Greeley next week for Christmas. Hoping Mother Nature dials up some snow. Looks likes highs in the 60's here in Arkansas.

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Yes I've been enjoying our current weather pattern.  We've been getting light accumulating snow off and on every day or two for the past week, with the pattern expected to continue for at least the next week.  Temps have generally been right around or just below freezing as well.  I love this type of weather and its effects on the landscape here in NW Montana, which is already spectacular enough even without a wet sticky snow :)

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I am having a horrible time with this board. Here is what I am seeing when I look at any thread while I am logged in-- it looks like my browser is not reading HTML tables or CSS correctly, but I don't really know what's the problem.

 

 

 

 

 

Not sure if this will help, but I have major issues like that with Internet Explorer.  I jump over to Chrome when it happens.

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Up to over a foot of snowpack here in WF. :)

Latest thump of snow has delivered over six inches of snow. Temps look good thru next weekend as well.

I spent a summer working in St. Mary right outside Glacier NP. The Whitehead Valley is awesome. We had snow mixed with rain on June 16th and people were skiing Logan Pass July 1st with 5' snowpack. Year was 2010.
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I spent a summer working in St. Mary right outside Glacier NP. The Whitehead Valley is awesome. We had snow mixed with rain on June 16th and people were skiing Logan Pass July 1st with 5' snowpack. Year was 2010.

 

Winters are crazy long along and east of the continental divide in Montana.  I used to live in Bozeman for three years and saw snow in two out of three Junes.  Just a trace, but June snow nonetheless, and at the valley floor.  Here in the Flathead Valley my impression from looking at climate data is the winters are not quite as long, but the trade off is that we get considerably more moisture in the core winter months, and don't get chinooked to death.  

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Snowing again here... looks like 1-2 inches per hour are moving into the region, according to NWS Missoula.  Currently have 14 inches on the ground from multiple events... they've bled together into a foggy haze of wintry bliss lol.

 

Meanwhile, down south, West Yellowstone has reported 50 inches of snow so far this month, with 3 inches of liquid.  Current snow depth is three feet.  Big Sky has four feet.  What a phenomenal start to winter.   :sled:

 

Interestingly, winter sucked up here near the Canadian border until about two weeks ago.  Quite the turnaround however...

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Chinook's snow magnet keeps working

 

r5gvaTP.jpg

 

November 11th (1st blizzard warning-east CO) 2.0"
Thanksgiving-Black Friday: freezing drizzle, 7.0"
Sunday night Pats-Broncos game: 0.3"
December 12th: 5.9"
December 15th: 8.9"
December 22nd: 0.5"
December 23rd: 0.5"
December 25th: 3.0"
November total: 9.3"
December total: 18.8"
season: 28.1"

 

note: southwest San Juan basin is now 146% of normal SWE

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Temperatures have been fairly steady since Christmas, with highs in the 20's and low in the single digits, with some below zeros away from the cities. Nice way to keep the snow around. The Denver departure from normal will be -0.1F to -0.5F for the month. It is +0.5F as of yesterday (Dec 1 - 29) but today and tomorrow will have departures of 16 below average or something like that.

 

Craig, in northwest Colorado, had high -4, low -27 on Dec. 27th.

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We have had an upper trough in the West the last couple of days, but it is not really creating significant storminess. 

 

Congrats to those in the Pacific Northwest-- looks like Seattle and Portland had the rainiest December on record (or something close.) I am sure the mountain snowpack is much improved over last year there. I am not so sure the downtown Seattle snowpack has improved :lmao:. NWS 4-km precip analysis shows a large area of 20" of precip for the Cascades, Olympics, and coast ranges. I wonder how much above 20" it was for the Cascades? I wonder if that means 200-600" of snow for high elevations

 

Edit: Sea-Tac Airport: 2nd wettest December in 68 years. Portland: 2nd wettest in 90 years.

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Chinook, 

 

Cool Photo !  ( would not let me reply directly to post?? ) 

 

My second winter living in the West, never going back to the east !  A couple weeks back while driving to Mt Bachelor in light snow and strong winds my 10 year old said " Watch out dad the is a snow tornado ahead! "  Of course she had never seen a large snow blowing cutting through 7 feet of snow berm.   Very pleased the extreme cold is easing up here, it ha been a long time since we were above 30.  Looks like a slow warm up with several chances for light snow and sleet this week. 

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Dec. 22 was the last day Fort Collins was above average. Yesterday, we got to the 40's, but the low temp was still below average.  The moderately cold air just sat in the same place and did about the same thing for a lot of days.

 

tNtcIEi.png

 

If you are in Montana or Wyoming, you might not want to see this-- the GFS and other models have been advertising some pretty cold stuff, over a week in the future

 

mqYtBiD.png

 

 

Seems as if this storm system on Wed-Thu will provide some snows for many mountain ranges, but may not be organized in the right way to bring much snow to eastern Colorado

 

FuyH1gO.png

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If you are in Montana or Wyoming, you might not want to see this-- the GFS and other models have been advertising some pretty cold stuff, over a week in the future

 

mqYtBiD.png

 

 

This time last year, I was snowmobiling around West Yellowstone at -40F.  Bring it on. :)

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It really seemed like the same exact cubic meters of air were in our yard for 3-4 straight days. The view of the Front Range got hazier and hazier and the same smoke from everyone's holiday wood fires sat in the neighborhood as the temp stayed cold. Then it was crystal clear as soon as the wind turned SW a couple days ago.

The moderately cold air just sat in the same place and did about the same thing for a lot of days.

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