Mountain West Discussion

[mayjawintastawm]

I got 2" before 4 PM yesterday, another 2.2" by 10 PM and another 1.8" at 7 AM today... so while it's super fluffy and likely not more than 0.25" WE, that makes 6". So there we are.

[Chinook]

I got 8.7" of snow, by my measurements. On CoCoRAHS, my area got 0.80" of precipitation, and 8.3"-12.6" of snow.

Edit: I'm not really sure why, but maybe my measurements were too low.

[Chinook]

Radar update for just Albuquerque

[finnster]

Our place did well in this storm - measured just shy of 16” (we’re above Lory State Park).  I’m so glad to see it, as our area was threatened by part of the Cameron Peak Fire.  We’re told the fires won’t be put out by this storm but it darn sure helped a lot.

[raindancewx]

I've got 4 inches of snow in my backyard as of 6 pm. The airport reported 0.09" as snow through 6 pm, but even with temperatures in the 20s all day, they'll probably report it as about 1" of snow, even though you'd expect ~17:1 or so as the ratio. This isn't really the main part of the storm anyway. The east wind should really die down from now on.

[Chinook]

72-hour snowfall analysis

[raindancewx]

[raindancewx]

That list looks pretty legitimate to me - there were reports of 3-9" for the Eastern half of the city, but more like 6-13" for the Western half. I had 2-4, up to 8" locally. Storm came in much colder and drier than I thought - only ~0.22" / 3.9" at the airport, but probably ~0.35-0.55" in the less snow shadowed areas, at 17:1 to 25:1 ratios overall, with temperatures 17-23 overnight in the city.
 

[Chinook]

New Mexico to West Texas storm reports (Oct 26-28) -- all times included

[donsutherland1]

With 4.2” snow at Albuquerque, October 2020 is that city’s snowiest October on record. The previous snowiest October was 1986 when 3.2” snow was measured.

[Chinook]

Tuesday morning's lows (Mesowest)

[raindancewx]

The Euro seems to be on board with another good storm in the time frame you'd expect with the big SOI crash. It's crazy to me that the SOI is going to finish October so far under +8 when the La Nina is so healthy looking on the SST maps.

[ikcarsky]

Here in east ABQ (Cibola Addition) we got 6" by dawn Tuesday, and almost another inch early Wednesday morning.  Snow cover on vegetation in shaded areas stuck around until late yesterday (Friday).  Biggest blast of winter I've experienced since I moved here from the Midwest last year.

 

[raindancewx]

Larry Cosgrove has a blend of 1952, 1959, 1970 (x2), 1978 (x2), 1995, 2005, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2014 as his winter analogs. One hell of a blend.

You have years with record cold / record warmth nearly everywhere, including some big snow months nearly everywhere. I actually don't think it's a terrible blend.

Locally: 

December 1959 is incredible. So is February 2015 for snow. 

January 3-January 9 1971 featured multiple lows below -10 in Albuquerque, but the month still finished warm. But the week was 20 degrees below average for a huge portion of NM and CO. 

I think mid-Dec to mid-Jan 1979 is probably one of the coldest periods on record for the West.

1995/2005 both featured very warm/dry conditions in the West.

2009, 2013, 2014 also all featured at least brief cold in the SW at times, same for the NE actually.

US wide:

May 2015 is one of the wettest months on record, top five I believe.

The 1970, 1978, 1995, 2007, 2009, 2013, 2014 are all know for their severity in one way or another - cold or snow - in huge portions of the East and Midwest.

 

 

 

[Chinook]

A deep low pressure area in Wyoming and Montana on Saturday and Sunday will bring in some snow and even some rain for western areas of Colorado on those days. There will be perhaps a bit more snow for for Monday and Tuesday for mountain areas. It appears that most of eastern Colorado will get some warm temperatures on Saturday with possible strong southerly winds, with temperatures dropping on Sunday. A wind advisory seems possible for Saturday. Models have 1" of QPF for the western half of Colorado, with 2"+ for the southwest San Juan range.

[Chinook]

NWS-NDFD snowfall totals (60 hrs)

[raindancewx]

Really hope we all get a lot of storms and snow through Feb/Mar. The semi-regular storms for just about the entire West since late October is a good development to counter all the smokiness, heat, dryness and fires. No rain here yet with the storm today. Albuquerque had a high of ~67 in my winter analogs 11/1-11/7, and so far we're at ~70, so it's been a decent match so far. My forecast had a high of ~60 for November locally, so still a long way to go - the cold CPC depicts in the next 10 days or so needs to verify for my forecast to be close. 

The SOI hasn't really connected with the impressive cold in the La Nina zones, so I'm thinking the warm North Pacific is counter-acting the usual strong La Nina effects to some degree. The cold ENSO years with a +0 to +8 SOI in October (below) tend to be pretty average to cold in the West overall. October 2020 SOI was +4. Only exception is 1933 which is not a great match to this year. A lot of these years are actually extremely hot or dry in the West in Summer-Fall before the flip cold, particularly 1954, 2007, 2012 and 1934. 1954 is probably the best match to October 2020 in the past 100 years nationally, with late hurricane activity, low sea ice for the time, a warm Atlantic, low solar, and a near identical temperature pattern for the US. It's also extremely cold in the SW in the winter - still have trouble buying that, even though I still fully expect some kind of cold-west pattern. We seem to be transitioning to that slowly this Fall, the near to record heat is at least being fought off more regularly than it was in May to September.

 

[Chinook]

My area got about 2.5" of snow.

[ValpoVike]

15 hours ago, Chinook said:

My area got about 2.5" of snow.

Only about 1" up here in Glen Haven.  We certainly needed a lot more.  I woke up around 2am Monday morning and noticed out my window a flame on a ridge above the North Fork trail at the edge of the CP fire.  Probably an isolated tree torching, but this fire isn't out yet and the dry pattern setting up over the next two weeks is of concern.  Crazy how this thing has survived two large snow events.

[raindancewx]

The local NWS likes a blend of 2007-08, 2010-11, 2016-17 for the winter. That blend is actually very wet for the West - that's my main issue with it.

http://www.weather.gov/media/abq/Briefings/202021WinterOutlook.pdf

[mayjawintastawm]

On 11/10/2020 at 8:29 AM, ValpoVike said:

Only about 1" up here in Glen Haven.  We certainly needed a lot more.  I woke up around 2am Monday morning and noticed out my window a flame on a ridge above the North Fork trail at the edge of the CP fire.  Probably an isolated tree torching, but this fire isn't out yet and the dry pattern setting up over the next two weeks is of concern.  Crazy how this thing has survived two large snow events.

1.5" here. The top inch or two of the ground softens up a bit with each little snowfall, then 5 days later it's hard as a rock again.

[Chinook]

My area had 58 on Sunday with less wind than I might have expected, followed up with temperatures around 28 for the snowfall on Monday.

Today's models show a little better snow for Friday/Saturday, mostly over 9000ft (east) or 8000ft (west). Perhaps we will have more dropping temperatures for this weekend. I wonder if we will have a trend of cold fronts on weekends.

Yesterday- I didn't really step outside to look at this, but I wish I did.

 

My pic from October 25th/26th

[Chinook]

Our area has some high wind watches. The NAM has about 25 kt (30mph) at the surface and 50 kt (58mph) at 3000 ft above ground tomorrow morning/afternoon. So I'm pretty sure my area will get some gusts to 50mph or more.

[Chinook]

Some moderate rain/snow and thunder in the Snake River Valley of Idaho tonight.

[raindancewx]

The GFS has been showing a much further south track than the European for the storm around 11/20. Will be interesting to see how that turns out. My winter blend implied November could be one of the wetter cold season months for NM/CO/AZ/UT, but would probably be late month if it did show up.

[mayjawintastawm]

Got stuck in that dust/rain/snow squall with a 54 MPH gust at APA this morning at 9:00. Beautiful first half of a bike ride... second half was hard! Now clear but winds steadily building again, gusting to 40s.

[Chinook]

Yesterday afternoon, my area had 25-50mph wind gusts, if not more. Late in the afternoon, the temperature was 35 degrees and the wind chill was certainly in the range of 25 degrees. Today, things were a much more normal 57, with just a breeze, and some lenticular clouds.

[Chinook]

Models are showing some snow for Colorado with an open 500mb trough on this Saturday.

[Chinook]

This may be overdone,  but we could get 0.25" or better east of the mountains. According to what I've seen, I guess there is a chance of rain for part of this storm.

[mayjawintastawm]

17 hours ago, Chinook said:

This may be overdone,  but we could get 0.25" or better east of the mountains. According to what I've seen, I guess there is a chance of rain for part of this storm.

 

So given that it's 4-5 days out, multiply QPF by 0.3 east of the mountains to get actual precip. At least that's been the trend for several months now.....