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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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Weather is kind of boring. Let's make fun of the models a little bit. There is a GFS, and there is a GFDL hurricane model. They both start with "GF". Why not have a GF(dL/dS). You know, the derivative of the GFS with respect to the GFDL. Let's see what the GF(dL/dS) says about the weather next week. Oh well, Even Chimpanzees Make Weather Forecasts!

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I'm expecting the monsoon to return pretty substantially either at the very end of July (next week) or in August. Albuquerque, since 1931 always has at least July or August get 0.51" rain. So far, July is only at 0.19", and none of the next two-three days look especially promising....but 85/85 is damned close to a lock for one of the two months getting at least 1/2 an inch of rain.

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Fort Collins had up to 0.20" - 0.30" with some nice lightning bolts in the 6pm-9pm time period. The dew point briefly got to 68.3, (in just one ten-minute period,) just after a downpour happened. I think I have only seen a dew point of 68 at CSU weather station one other time in my 10 years of being here. Then the dew point dropped back to about 60. Our temps cooled to the low 70's when it was raining and the low temp got to the lower 60's thankfully.

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cfs-mon_01_apcpna_month_wus_1.png

CFS says the SW & Rockies are wet for much of August-October as the monsoon returns with vengeance. Historically, 7/10 Augusts are in the wettest third of Augusts after a hot July in ABQ. Following any other July, only 29% of Augusts are wet.  The color above implies 2-2.5" rain for Albuquerque in August (0.5"-1.0" above average). CFS is going back/forth on temperatures, but if you plot it out for Albuquerque and at least some other sites in NM, every inch of rain is worth roughly ~1F in cooling off the average high. So I figure maybe our average high ends up just below average (maybe ~88-88.5F instead of 89.3F). 

Every monsoon since 1892 has had >=1.4" rain from June 15 - Sept 30 in Albuquerque, and we're currently at 0.30" for June 15-July 29, so I'm expecting at least 1.1" to fall in August & September (if we don't get more by the 31st) - more like 40%-45% of the long term average monsoon strength instead of 15-20% of average monsoon strength.

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Well the GFS does predict above normal precipitable water for the Southwest in the next week, so let's go monsooooooooon! Sometimes you got to root for the weather during a drought.

pics of supercells east of Fort Collins on Wedesday and today!!!!

 

moLOJQJ.jpg

 

ahDEawf.jpg

 

 

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In the monsoon month of July, Fort Collins had +1.8F on temperature, and had 0.91" precipitation. My place had 0.92" approximately. It's funny how close my house was compared to CSU-- precipitation was not the same on all days. I guess I'm glad precipitation wasn't 0.

Today, it got up to 96 and the dew point dropped below 30 at times.

Rain was widespread around here yesterday- many areas got 0.01 to 0.02 that don't show up on this graphic. Some downpours happened in Fort Collins.


1MqYwgc.jpg

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Monsoon has returned as expected quite nicely this last week. Been raining lightly to moderately in Albuquerque, NE NM, and Western NM for most of the past two-three hours. Temperatures have cooled quite nicely from the staggering heat of July (which was our eighth hottest month since 1931 by average highs). Our ten hottest Julys are followed by an average of 2.0" of rain in August, so it's been nice to see the rains come. Hope we get more tomorrow. Airport already has more rain this August than last August.

I'm increasingly doubtful of a La Nina this winter, although conditions look borderline. Starting to think the PDO will be neutral rather than positive too. I think it's probably fair to look at cold neutrals and weak La Ninas mashed together to try to get an idea of what will happen in the fall. One thing that is interesting to me is that wet Augusts in ABQ usually correspond (especially if conjoined with a wet October) with cold/wet Springs and snowy cold seasons to the SW regardless of ENSO state.

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Today was very cool around here-- high of 72. It was like fall. It was overcast for most of the day and we had some very light rain (trace to 0.05") this evening. This is really kind of a surprise after highs of 94 and 96 this week. Edit: My place got 0.16" from moderate rain on Aug 3.

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You guys can have fairly cool late Summers/early Falls when the PDO is positive and a dominant feature.  It favors early cool shots in the Dakotas/CO/WY/MT, and moisture coming up from the SW into the rest of the West - both of which can lower temps. I've been expecting a relatively cool/wet period over the SW sometime in Aug-Oct before we warm up again against normals. The Atlantic and E. Pac hurricanes should start to kill/move/weaken the ridge of death and allow moisture / cool shots to work in conjunction to shut off the SW oven that was cooking in June/July.

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This isn't much different from my map posted yesterday, but there are some differences. Southwest Colorado got a good bit of rain yesterday. Phoenix may be cashing in on this wet period. Or there might have been dangerous flooding in Phoenix (not sure).

 

thdTXU1.jpg

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It actually looks to me like the PDO has weakened quite a bit in July and early August from how positive it was in June. NOAA had the July value at 0.18 (down from 1.18 last July). The cold surrounding warm signature of the -PDO is starting to show up around Alaska, although the Western Pacific still has more of a positive PDO signature.

cdas-sflux_ssta_global_1.png

 

 

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