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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook

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The European has now shown, for a couple runs in a row a major rain/snow event in the 6-10 day time frame for S. NM. This is relatively consistent with some of the research that says after a 20 point SOI drop, in a La Nina, within three days, you tend to get a big system over the SW in around 10-days. We went from +35.9 on 3/17 to -7.3 on 3/19, which is an unbelievable drop, and associated with a tropical system impacting Darwin directly.

I've literally never seen a model show this much precipitation for NM, even ten days out, in a non-Summer month. Most of it is day nine, will be interesting to see if it is still there tomorrow. 

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Most models are showing a deep low in the Southwest, which would, at the least, be a good synoptic storm for Colorado's mountains, and probably Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico. A couple of the runs of the GFS showed a lot of snow for Denver. So there's definitely something to watch. 

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Real question is...will it ever rain in Amarillo? They're legitimately at 0.01" since mid-October 2017.

We hit 70F yesterday around 4 pm, and then 75F today, our first 70s of the year, so time for big winter/spring storms is running out. The GFS hints that the 3/29 system (if it is real) might be the first real shot at 0.05" or 0.10" in Amarillo since October.

April often looks like January but with the pattern shifted West, so I think its a pretty dry/warm month - if that system doesn't verify I really think they could make it into May without anything.

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Diamond Peaks

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Cameron Pass trail/ parking area.

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Nokhu Crags as seen from the East

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Nokhu Crags as seen from the bend in the road

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Mt. Richthofen as seem from Cameron Pass parking area

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Nokhu Crags as seen from Nokhu Crags parking area

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possibly Iron Mountain as seen from the bend in the road

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Two storm systems from Monday to Thursday should be in the range of 0.3"-0.7" for Denver metro (mostly rain). Chance of heavy snow for the Palmer Divide. I wonder if any of this will change over to heavy snow for Denver. This storm will be about 0.1"-0.4" for Larimer County and Cheyenne WY, which is disappointing.  Total values of 0.2"-0.8" are likely for other areas of eastern Colorado, mostly rain.

I wonder if my area will get greater than 0.50" for this whole month. 

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Nino 1.2 has cooled tremendously again lately, not a good sign for the West in April. Cold Nino 1.2 is usually a very dry/hot pattern for almost the entire West, and the CFS has been going to a torch/dry pattern again for our region.

The system in a few days at least looks like it will bring some rain and snow to much of New Mexico and the Southwest.

We've had a couple Springs down here with legitimately 0.00-0.10" of precipitation, that at least looks unattainable this year if the next system delivers anything, since we're already at 0.09" for March. I hope it over-performs a bit and we finally get a wet March in the city, but its not looking likely at this point. The MJO should wake up again in the next week and do the 7-8-1-2 dance again, so at least it will turn somewhat colder if we get to 2 again.

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One more nice over-performer for much of the Denver Metro, both in the WE and snow accumulation departments! Nice to see after a crappy astronomical winter, though too warm to XC ski on. We got 5"+ of heavy wet snow (may have been 6" if I had remembered to set the board outside!) after a good 0.2" of rain. Past couple years it seems that spring is winter, summer is oven, fall is summer with scattered winter (October 8-9 anyone?), and winter is dark cool fall.

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Some of the organic indicators are hinting at a big, maybe pretty cold system for much of the West mid-month. Will be probably be a big severe weather event too. Last year, we had snow on 4/29 (0.7", it stuck!) in the city after a warm winter. The date of the last snowfall here varies meaningfully between the low solar/high solar years, low solar years are ~4x more likely to see a final snow after 4/7, and since I tested 53 v. 33 years in a difference of proportions test, it isn't likely to be due to chance (p is 0.02 or something).

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My area got about 1" of sloppy snow, with most likely 0.35" combined rain and snow. All in afternoon, normally the warmest part of the day.

The GFS runs have been showing a deep 500mb low in the West at about 264-276 hrs. (not quite mid-April) It could be interesting to see if this feature remains consistent.

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In the next several days, models differ on exact details of snow, but all agree that snow will occur near in the Midwest, Northeast, and northern Rockies. On average, there will be a big boundary of cold air and warm air, as shown on this 5-day anomaly plot

Fq9U0Rn.png

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Looks like mid-late week next week CO will be on the hairy edge of very warm/dry/fiery and cool/upslope/??moist. Any thoughts about where the dividing line will be? Things have gone back and forth a bit the past few weeks. I have 20 people coming into town on 4/11 for a meeting- part of me wants them to have easy travels and part of me wants to show them springtime in Colorado. :) 

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We have had a few cool and windy days recently, but not today. The models continue to show rain changing to snow for my area tomorrow.

 I think April 11th should be pretty warm for your guests. Maybe they will be surprised by the low relative humidity. 

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I am starting to get hopeful that today's event will over perform up here in the foothills.  We already have an inch on the ground and intensity has been steadily ramping.  Forecast is 1-3 thru Saturday early a.m., but I have my fingers crossed for 5-6".

EDIT:  Just noticed that the forecast has been officially bumped to 3-5, so I may not be far off.

 

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We have already gotten about 1" of snow, perhaps with more than 0.10" of liquid. Temperature dropped to 25. Radar looks pretty darn good in the foothills/mountains. The cold air didn't really get to Walden, CO - it's still 37 degrees there at 8000 ft.

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For whatever reason it seems like March/April and Dec/Jan always seem to flip in the West for temps/precip. Suspect this will end up being a pretty good month for much of the West, save TX/NM/AZ in terms of precip.

Its interesting looking at how hot/dry TX got in March with the complete lack of precipitation for five months in the panhandle. Until proven otherwise, will continue the ridge is bossiest in that zone. The heat did have trouble piercing the front range / central mountains of NM though, so we ended up with a much colder March year/year. The February SOI correlation to dryness in the NW in March beat the La Nina pretty easily - will have to remember that for future years. I had been toying with 3/2005 as an analog to March, and it ended up OK in the NE, that blotch of cold by VA with a warmer New England relatively is in a lot of big negative SOI February years.

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My place got about 1.5" of snow Friday, with possibly 0.15-0.25" of water equivalent. The temperature remained 25 through the afternoon and evening hours, making for one of the most frozen April afternoons that I can remember. The snow continued for a long time period. The mountains got two separate snow events, adding up to 12-24" above 9000 ft or 10000 ft.

The warm air mass started pushing in here in the nighttime hours. Now we have downslope winds and 60 degrees.

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On 4/6/2018 at 10:43 PM, raindancewx said:

I had been toying with 3/2005 as an analog to March, and it ended up OK in the NE, that blotch of cold by VA with a warmer New England relatively is in a lot of big negative SOI February years.

 

March 2005 had a highly negative NAO, so did this past month!

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