Mountain West Discussion

[Chinook]

This is a huge moisture plume for the central US

 

[frontranger8]

2 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

And models are caving, as usual, to the drier ones. Nothing except the NAM has more than 1" for the Denver Metro at 12Z. 

Looks like a very sharp cutoff across the metro area. Could easily be a situation tomorrow where Westminster has .3" and Parker has 1.5".

Bummer that we're just a bit too far north to get in on the heavy action. Southern CO from the springs east is gonna get drenched.

[mayjawintastawm]

49 minutes ago, frontranger8 said:

Looks like a very sharp cutoff across the metro area. Could easily be a situation tomorrow where Westminster has .3" and Parker has 1.5".

Or Westminster has 0.03" and Parker 0.15". Bummer indeed. We'll have to import water from New Mexico at this rate. And in 30 hours from right now, Denver Water is prohibiting all outdoor watering for the foreseeable future, including next Spring till they say so. 

[Chinook]

Drips on the camera

[finnster]

16 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

Or Westminster has 0.03" and Parker 0.15". Bummer indeed. We'll have to import water from New Mexico at this rate. And in 30 hours from right now, Denver Water is prohibiting all outdoor watering for the foreseeable future, including next Spring till they say so. 

I hear ya. Weighing in here from the Fort Collins area. It looks like we're way too far north to cash in on any of this moisture.  Should be getting to used to that by now but still get PO'd about it! Hope you guys in Denver metro get something out of it.  BTW here in northern CO and in WY to our north it's been a miserably hot and dry year, and seemingly no end to it.  

[Chinook]

Four Corners low

cold and snow. It is snowing in Colorado, but at over 11000ft at Wolf Creek Pass, so pretty high up there

[frontranger8]

18 hours ago, mayjawintastawm said:

Or Westminster has 0.03" and Parker 0.15". Bummer indeed. We'll have to import water from New Mexico at this rate. And in 30 hours from right now, Denver Water is prohibiting all outdoor watering for the foreseeable future, including next Spring till they say so. 

I was talking more about the extreme N/S cutoff, not where exactly it sets up.

Unfortunately, looks like it may be Parker to Monument. Already half an inch of rain in the Springs today.

[smokeybandit]

0.01" so far from what only 36-48 hours ago was supposed to be a flood concern.

[frontranger8]

Miss to the south, bummer. Santa Fe has picked up 3.5" from this system.

[finnster]

3 hours ago, smokeybandit said:

0.01" so far from what only 36-48 hours ago was supposed to be a flood concern.

Seems like really bad forecasting to miss it this badly!

[LVblizzard]

Moved to Denver from PA recently, being on the wrong side of a precip cutoff is a feeling I unfortunately know all too well. Pretty massive bust…even just 24 hours ago some of the hi-res models brought an inch of rain to the Denver metro.

[mayjawintastawm]

2 hours ago, LVblizzard said:

Moved to Denver from PA recently, being on the wrong side of a precip cutoff is a feeling I unfortunately know all too well. Pretty massive bust…even just 24 hours ago some of the hi-res models brought an inch of rain to the Denver metro.

Welcome! We lived in the Lehigh Valley about 30 years ago and experienced both the thrill of victory (a couple enormous snowstorms in about 1995) and the agony of defeat (skiing in the pouring rain at Blue Mountain when snow was forecast). I will say that medium and long range forecast accuracy around here is typically awful, not through any fault of anyone except Mother Nature. Storms tend to form right over us - or not - rather than coming from hundreds or thousands of miles away, making it super hard to predict anything specific more than a day or so out.

One good thing is that we VERY rarely have snow changing to rain, ever. Much more common the other way around. Ptype is one thing that's pretty accurate, even snow levels within a few hundred feet most of the time. You'll learn the elevation of just about anywhere you go. 

[donsutherland1]

In part due to moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Polo, Lincoln, NE set an all-time daily precipitation record yesterday with 6.15" of rain. The old record had stood for more than a century.

[finnster]

2 hours ago, donsutherland1 said:

In part due to moisture from the remnants of Hurricane Polo, Lincoln, NE set an all-time daily precipitation record yesterday with 6.15" of rain. The old record had stood for more than a century.

Thanks for sharing this - impressive! It's nice to see this type of record being broken in this region for a change, rather than heat and dryness....

[finnster]

On 9/10/2026 at 7:03 PM, frontranger8 said:

If you look at previous very strong Ninos (1972-73, 1982-83, 1991-92, 1997-98, 2015-16), every one of them had above average snowfall. However, a lot of that is due to some huge fall and spring storms. DJF tends to be a little less snowy than normal and warm to average temps.

I'm late in responding but thanks for this and provides some hope. I was disappointed though yesterday to see the extended outlook (7-10 days) calls for significant warming and lack of storms. This is not the way we want to start October! As we've seen time and time again this year, these high pressure systems tend to hang around too long - hope this one doesn't . 

[mayjawintastawm]

Total rain at my house 1.26" for September. Interesting that Centennial Airport just 3-4 miles south got 3.23". Also DEN was 4th warmest all time for the month.

Looks like the transition zone from lighter to heavier rain the last 2 days (using an inch, more or less, as the dividing line) was way down in Pueblo and Huerfano Counties.