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Mountain West Discussion


Chinook
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Not a bust where I’m at in the foothills SW of Bellvue (above Horsetooth Res). Between 11-12” total from this storm and happy to see it.

I'm estimating 65”+ 8at our place so far this season - a lot of it in October & November (30” from the big storm before Thanksgiving).

After a very dry January I say keep it coming :D

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I'm at 10.3" inches of snow at my place so far for Oct-Feb. Airport got 1.3" today - so they're up to 6.6". If we get more snow this month before the NE corridor does, Albuquerque will probably be ahead of the combined NYC + Philly + Baltimore + DC total again - currently 4.8+0.3+1.8+0.6 - which is 7.5". Those four cities get ~80 inches of snow in average year (25+22+18+15), about 8x Albuquerque, so it's kind of nuts how close the totals are.

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The NW-flow snow event is already happening. A trace of snow occurred here at about 6:00PM and made the sidewalks a little slippery. So that makes 4 straight days this week that I have driven on wet or slippery roads. We are expecting some more snow tomorrow, with a winter weather advisory. 

low temps on Wednesday. I drove in between Loveland and Fort Collins with at least -11 F temperatures and some leftover snow from Tuesday. Thankfully, there was some open pavement that was non-icy.

Gj24SLT.jpg

 

tomorrow's snowfall:

AtepDqH.jpg

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My area got a band of snow this morning, generally after 8:00AM. We got 3". Temperatures have warmed to around 30 degrees, so snow is not as fluffy as before, and the streets are getting better already. By my calculations, that puts my place at 43.6" for the year, which puts us above average for this date. The snowless January has not seriously put us in danger of below normal snowfall for the year.

The GFS shows snow in Albuquerque on Tuesday??? What??!!

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I think I got another 2" after I posted yesterday. New snow bands came in. One of the snow bands shifted north of Fort Collins for a few hours until I went to bed. I wonder what happened there? Maybe 0.5" to 1" per hour snowfall rate for a while. For me, this now rivals the week of November 26th as the 2nd snowiest week I have seen in a few years, with, I think, 13.2" at my place.

Most models agree on QPF values of 0.8" or better in New Mexico on Tuesday. I assume this will be mostly snow as the 700mb temperatures will be much lower than average. 

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The new Euro has a snow shadow for Albuquerque and a lot of the Rio Grande Valley on Tuesday. I actually think Monday morning may be a better shot for snow in the city. No fierce East wind. The Euro from 5 am today had dew points at 28 for 11 am today, the dew point was 21. So if it is over-estimating how wet the air is, we can wet bulb to 31 or 32 degrees and snow on Monday. 36 with a dew point of 23 is a reliable way to get snow here. 

Euro has 35-50 mph East winds for the airport at 7 am. I've never seen it snow here with an East wind that high. It's probably too windy for anything at the airport from 2 am to 9 am Tuesday if the Euro is right. 9 am to 1 pm looks good for some snow, and 10 pm to 2 am if it is cold enough.  

There were also like four storms here in January forecast to bring 0.25 - 0.50" moisture individually, and none of them verified that high. Best one was like 0.15". So I'm somewhat skeptical on the amounts of moisture shown. The 3-km NAM is pretty good here, we'll see what it has later tonight when the whole event is in range.

My best guess is we fall to 36F or something 3 am Monday morning. Dew point is around 21-24 because it has been dry and highs are in the 60s lately, so lots of evaporation.

Then precip moves in around 3 am - 9 am. We wet bulb to 30-32. The precipitation is snow until around 11 am/noon. If it sticks to the ground, it stays snow until 1-2 pm, and then stops for a few hours or goes to rain. Precip continues off/on into the evening, likely as rain. Then the East wind starts to come, slowly changing rain to snow from 9 pm to 2 am, but then it shuts off when the wind is too strong. No snow for a while with the wind, but then it returns late morning for a few hours. Then it all moves out around 2 pm Tuesday. 

My gut-

0.1-0.2" from 5 am to 2 pm Monday, temperatures 30-35, probably all snow.

0.05-0.20" 2 pm to 10 pm Monday - temperatures 36-44, rain.

0.03-0.08" 10 pm - 2 am Monday-Tues. Snow. Temps 30-35

Nothing  2 am to 9 am Tuesday. Winds out of the East 25-45 mph, gusts to 50-55.

0.05-0.15" 9 am-2 pm Tuesday. Snow. Temps 28-33.

That would be 0.23" to 0.63"- the Euro has 0.4-0.6" - with 0.18" to 0.43" as snow. Probably 0.25" for most of the city. At temperatures listed, 1-4 inches of snow for the city, with some rain too.

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Yesterday we had some 40 degree temps yesterday and much better roads.  We had with downslope wind gusts into the late night hours with temperatures above freezing at midnight. Now, our area has cooled down and gotten some snow again. It is associated with a developing 500mb low pressure in California and the cold front aloft extending eastward. My area has less than 1", but there appears to be 3-6" reports near Boulder, and 0.7" at DIA

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1 hour ago, Chinook said:

Yesterday we had some 40 degree temps yesterday and much better roads.  We had with downslope wind gusts into the late night hours with temperatures above freezing at midnight. Now, our area has cooled down and gotten some snow again. It is associated with a developing 500mb low pressure in California and the cold front aloft extending eastward. My area has less than 1", but there appears to be 3-6" reports near Boulder, and 0.7" at DIA

It snowed for a good 8 hours IMBY but only got about an inch or so.

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You brought it up, so how much snow am I getting Chinook? I could see a coating to 2", or 4-8" - it just depends on if the moisture can beat the East wind. My guess is we'll have a few hours before and after the East wind with some snow. So I like 1-4" generally, and maybe some early tomorrow too, since the dew point is only 12, and we should fall to at least 40 pretty easily before moisture arrives.

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22 hours ago, Solak said:
 
Kirkwood now gusting 209 MPH! This could potentially be a new California state record wind speed if verified!

I don't see this on any particular local storm report. Nevertheless, it is incredible what can happen when 500mb wind streak goes over a mountain range, with complex aerodynamics. I am not sure of the timing, so I don't know what the 500mb wind speed was at the time of this report.

Raindance, unfortunately, mesoscale models still have quite low values of snow for Albuquerque, but at least some 0.3-0.5" of rain might be possible.

--- 

NWS Boulder: Snow will increase along the Front Range during the rush hour, with slushy/icy roads by 8 PM, especially from Denver south and west. #cowx

--

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Chinook, my sense is since rain will arrive first, the East wind won't be able to immediately destroy the precipitation. As it dries out the column of air, it cools, so it snows for a while. Once it is colder, it will stop, but it will still take a while. I do think the snow will stop for the whole city by 5 am or so. But I think there is a good window from 11 pm to 3-6 am where it is rain to snow. We were supposed to hit 53 today, and it only got to 49, so the transition may happen a bit faster than expected.

I think 1-5", locally less for SE ABQ, locally more for the NW areas and highest elevations of the city (5,600-6,300 feet) is probably right, especially if the Euro is right with the snow it shows after the East wind dies off around 10 am tomorrow. At this point, I'd consider two inches of snow, with 0.5" of total liquid a big win, it would nearly verify my snow (8.8") and precipitation forecasts (1.25") for the winter from October for the city.

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44 minutes ago, raindancewx said:

https://www.scribd.com/document/446483878/Spring-2020-Outlook

My Spring 2020 outlook. General idea is +1 for Mar-May for Rockies-West Coast compared to a 1954, 1993, 2005, 2019 blend, with the East +3 compared to that blend. Probably wetter than the blend in the SW & NE in March too.

Some maps from the document -

wU5bXwd.png

u7ZmfEZ.png

nU6zsZg.png

 

6oHjR44.png

Thanks for sharing. Appreciate the detailed analysis, as usual. Selfishly, I hope you’re wrong for the CO Front Range. I think our chances of an at least decently snowy spring are higher than your outlook indicates. Generally, snowy falls here are followed by roughly average to well above average snowfall in March and April (May is a crapshoot). Various long range models, for whatever they’re worth, point to an at least somewhat wet March here too (don’t put much stock in long range model forecasts for April and beyond). 

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All of a sudden, I feel like I live next to a great lake.  My place has had measureable snow for 5 out of the last 8 days and a trace on Thursday.

@NWSBoulder

Most areas along and west of I-25 have had 1-2" of snow and have slushy roads. Snow will decrease north of Denver by 11 PM, with 1/2 inch per hour snowfall continuing from Denver south and west, decreasing in those areas in the early morning hours. #cowx

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Most of New Mexico got snow - Albuquerque did get a bit, but not much. This is the first time in several years the airport got accumulating snow with an east wind and I didn't. Still, the storm brought 0.35" to Albuquerque, biggest storm since November. The precipitation portion of my winter forecast is pretty close - we're at 1.00" for Dec-Feb, and I forecast 1.25" for Albuquerque. We'll see how close I get by the end of the month. Biggest lake in the state is set to be the most full it has been since 2009 after we pass the 2010 peak in a few days.

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On 2/10/2020 at 9:50 PM, Chinook said:

All of a sudden, I feel like I live next to a great lake.  My place has had measureable snow for 5 out of the last 8 days and a trace on Thursday.

@NWSBoulder

Most areas along and west of I-25 have had 1-2" of snow and have slushy roads. Snow will decrease north of Denver by 11 PM, with 1/2 inch per hour snowfall continuing from Denver south and west, decreasing in those areas in the early morning hours. #cowx

Funny, I was just thinking this same thing yesterday.  This has been a good series of almost daily modest snows and reminds me of my years in Chardon, OH where February was consistently like this once Erie mostly froze over and the really big dumps cut off.  Big dumps are fun every once in a while, but I'll take a long series of manageable snows any day.

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