mayjawintastawm Posted December 3 Author Share Posted December 3 3.5" here at 10 AM. This has been a very typical light upslope storm, and also typical in that the foothills north and west of town got the most (so far), as opposed to south. Winds were a little more east than north. Really well predicted! Edit: 5.0" for a final at 8 PM. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tacoman25 Posted December 3 Share Posted December 3 Up to 6" here, still coming down. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted December 3 Share Posted December 3 About 5" up here, pretty much aligning with the forecast yesterday. I did get to get my new plow out on the UTV to test it 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
finnster Posted December 3 Share Posted December 3 About 8" here in foothills NW of Fort Collins with good moisture content. A blessing indeed! 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokeybandit Posted December 3 Share Posted December 3 I got a nice push this afternoon. Probably 5" by the time it's done. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mercurial Posted December 4 Share Posted December 4 Last few GFS runs have been really neat. We're breaking the color chart. Yesterday's 00z gfs actually gave W Yellowstone 100" lol. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted December 4 Author Share Posted December 4 6 minutes ago, Mercurial said: Last few GFS runs have been really neat. We're breaking the color chart. Yesterday's 00z gfs actually gave W Yellowstone 100" lol. Saw this and thought "GFS is hallucinating again", now I can't get that map and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" out of my head. Groovy. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted December 5 Share Posted December 5 On 12/3/2025 at 10:09 PM, finnster said: About 8" here in foothills NW of Fort Collins with good moisture content. A blessing indeed! wow! The models never had 8" around Fort Collins for that storm New winter storm warning above 9000 ft today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Smith Posted December 5 Share Posted December 5 White rain gradually turned to powdery snow at 1.5" hour rates, ski resort locally is opening this weekend and saying wow, glad we didn't invest in snowmakers after all. ... 32 F, hills are nearly impassable locally. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted December 7 Share Posted December 7 I don't think I've seen a Rocky Mountain single storm report with over 5 ft until now 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokeybandit Posted December 7 Share Posted December 7 Definitely some needed snow for the mountains. Too bad us high plains folks aren't going to see any snow any time soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted December 8 Author Share Posted December 8 Noting the drought severity and coverage slowly growing east of the Divide. We're now in D2 (roughly between Cherry Creek and the South Platte, and south of Denver proper). The next couple weeks don't look to help that at all. https://www.drought.gov/states/colorado Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tacoman25 Posted December 8 Share Posted December 8 4 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said: Noting the drought severity and coverage slowly growing east of the Divide. We're now in D2 (roughly between Cherry Creek and the South Platte, and south of Denver proper). The next couple weeks don't look to help that at all. https://www.drought.gov/states/colorado Meh, from watching those maps over the years, seems like we're in D1 or higher most the time. Nothing to really be concerned about until you get to D3. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Smith Posted December 9 Share Posted December 9 Least favorite type of weather here, cold rain falling on snow and slowly turning it to slush. About 5" of snow on ground yesterday is now basically 3" of gloop. Not so bad above 4,000' so far, ski resort slopes are mostly up higher than that. Around 37 F at my elevation, mid-40s and mostly bare ground lower down in Columbia valley. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted December 10 Share Posted December 10 85mph at Berthoud Pass and 79mph on lower ground Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted December 11 Share Posted December 11 On 12/9/2025 at 5:38 PM, Chinook said: 85mph at Berthoud Pass and 79mph on lower ground Yeah, it's been quite windy this week. Clocked 59 MPH on my Davis, but I am only at 7300'. The downslope has kept us quite warm too, with a low of 53 degrees this morning and a high of 59 so far today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tacoman25 Posted December 11 Share Posted December 11 Yep, raging Chinooks thanks to the Pacific firehouse that's been hitting the PNW. Hopefully this pattern doesn't persist too much longer. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Smith Posted December 12 Share Posted December 12 It was also quite mild up north here, near 50 F in the Columbia valley (Trail BC) where there is no snow at all, and 45F at my elevation where we still have a bit of snow cover, mostly frozen slush at this point. Driving down the hill into Trail it was evident that the snow line was just below 3,000' asl here. (at the border the valley is down around 1500' asl). It was almost jacket-free mild in the valley and you do see the odd person wearing shorts even in this ski resort area (making a statement of some kind, no doubt). A minor renewal of the major 2021 Fraser valley flood disaster is underway. The Nooksack River which drains the Mount Baker region into Puget Sound had a natural outflow channel before modern times through a flat area near Abbotsford BC known as the Sumas Prairie. There was a natural lake that was drained for intensive agriculture, and of course in very wet seasons that lake tries to fill up, and largely succeeded in Nov 2021. At this point, some water 2 or 3 feet deep has crossed the border, mostly overflow from the Nooksack although there are some tributaries of the Fraser that flood also. There is some infrastructure to channel these overflows into drainage canals that are then pumped over a low divide into the Fraser. In Nov 2021 the Fraser was also flooding so this failed leading to a very rapid inundation to a level of 10-15 feet in some areas. This potential has been known for decades and you would think massive infrastructure would have been built to deal with it, but for whatever reason we are stuck with the rather ineffective smaller scale plans that only work in moderately wet weather conditions. This is because our BC provincial politics seem to be based on a combination of salmon worship and endless talk about possible plans but not starting any of them for fear of offending the spirit of the wild bear. At least that's how it was explained to me at the Indoctrination Center. 1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted Tuesday at 05:27 PM Share Posted Tuesday at 05:27 PM I forgot to mention this yesterday, but one of the Glacier National Park web cams had water drops, that is, rain. That is a result of such warm air. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted Wednesday at 03:56 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 03:56 PM I don't think I've seen much rain in Montana in winter Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted Wednesday at 04:21 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 04:21 PM we got all sorts of wind and fire out here! (probably not that much fire) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted Wednesday at 08:34 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 08:34 PM 4 hours ago, Chinook said: we got all sorts of wind and fire out here! (probably not that much fire) According to the Watch Duty app, no new fires today so far. Fingers crossed. Up here it hasn't been too bad yet as my max gust has been 54mph. Cruising the nearby Estes-area Davis stations on WeatherLink, the max I can find is 60mph. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted Wednesday at 09:04 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 09:04 PM Boulder probably had some trees down today Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ValpoVike Posted Wednesday at 09:12 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 09:12 PM 9 minutes ago, Chinook said: Boulder probably had some trees down today Indeed, I found an 80mph gust in the last hour at the bottom of the canyon. Also, CDOT has closed 36 between Lyons and Boulder due to wind, which is probably a very wise move given the orientation and the fact that it hugs the base of the foothills. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokeybandit Posted Wednesday at 10:51 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 10:51 PM 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Roger Smith Posted Wednesday at 11:05 PM Share Posted Wednesday at 11:05 PM Strong winds also up here, with resultant power failure after trees came down on power lines. Near blizzard conditions in southern Alberta, major highway multi-vehicle pile up north of Calgary. We have lost our thin snow cover during recent mild spell, quite cold in the wind but it cleared up shortly after a couple of brief flurries, still quite windy, 35 F. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chinook Posted yesterday at 12:24 AM Share Posted yesterday at 12:24 AM One of my ideas is that La Nina slows down the subtropical jet and enhances the polar jet along the US-Canada border (going into winter months) You can see on this chart the 30-day 250mb jet stream has been much less westerly than normal from Hawaii to San Francisco, which makes lots of sense with this idea. I also think the La Nina leads to greater wind events for Colorado. (Like today) There is definitely an upper level ridge in the averages, over the Pac NW, leading to lower precipitation out West. And a large Greenland block-Labrador Sea block. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
smokeybandit Posted 13 hours ago Share Posted 13 hours ago I'll be curious to see wind reports for my area this morning. My PWS doesn't pick up north winds well due to terrain, but it registered 39mph gusts, so I know it was higher than that. And my grill cover got blown off, and it's on quite tight. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mayjawintastawm Posted 9 hours ago Author Share Posted 9 hours ago My rooftop PWS is also not high enough to register wind speeds accurately, but it was up to 33 MPH several times last night and in the past its readings are roughly 40-50% of what the nearby airport records so I can safely say we had 60 mph gusts, which are the highest recorded since we've lived here (15 years). Fortunately we had a lot of tree work done this year and no damage other than a holiday dinosaur in the front yard that broke into pieces. We have friends in Yuma County who were absolutely terrified by the fires last night, all sparked by downed power poles when the wind gusts topped 70 mph with the frontal passage around 9 PM last night. Fortunately, between farmers with tractors and disc plows and what other ground-based resources they had, they were able to contain all but one within a few hours. The threat isn't over yet, but neither do they have power yet. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tacoman25 Posted 9 hours ago Share Posted 9 hours ago 17 hours ago, Chinook said: One of my ideas is that La Nina slows down the subtropical jet and enhances the polar jet along the US-Canada border (going into winter months) You can see on this chart the 30-day 250mb jet stream has been much less westerly than normal from Hawaii to San Francisco, which makes lots of sense with this idea. I also think the La Nina leads to greater wind events for Colorado. (Like today) There is definitely an upper level ridge in the averages, over the Pac NW, leading to lower precipitation out West. And a large Greenland block-Labrador Sea block. I agree that wind events are more common in La Ninas. But the current pattern we've been stuck in for the past 10 days or so is atypical, with a parade of super-juiced, subtropical atmospheric rivers hitting the PNW, which is what's leading to this crazy westerly flow across the continent. It's leading to record warmth across the West, meanwhile up north they're in the deep freeze. Places like Juneau, AK are having one of the coldest Decembers in many years. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Create an account or sign in to comment
You need to be a member in order to leave a comment
Create an account
Sign up for a new account in our community. It's easy!
Register a new accountSign in
Already have an account? Sign in here.
Sign In Now