Mountain West Discussion

[Kayla]

We talked about this a few days ago when our big storm shown in the models starting tonight and going through Tuesday just vanished.   We win and you win. 

 

Some might say "We lose and you win" though. 

[TT-SEA]

Some might say "We lose and you win" though. 

 

Yes... but you like snow. 

[Kayla]

Without radar coverage here I've had to rely on the HRRR a lot more than I'd like but interesting enough it shows a pretty heavy band of rain changing to snow for the Bozeman area beginning around midnight tonight. Would be a surprise to pick up a quick inch or two tonight out ahead of tomorrows main system.

 

[Kayla]

Major early winter storm is knocking on the door this morning. Looks like the snow has begun in Great Falls and is slowly shifting south.

 

Models have been steadily increasing snowfall amounts in the Bozeman area now with 3-5" looking pretty likely now.

 

It sure feels like a snow storm is brewing out there with a brisk NW wind and a very low cloud deck. Currently 33F.

[TT-SEA]

Live view from Bozeman...

 

[Kayla]

Meanwhile just getting started up in Great Falls area which will likely lead the way in valley snowfall totals come this time tomorrow. This camera will be a good one to track as the day progresses.

http://cordilleramontana.worldnow.com/category/295246/great-falls-i-cam

 

[Front Ranger]

After a mild and partly sunny weekend, the rain is back this morning along with very cool temps. Hovering just above 40 right now in Boulder...I can see snow about 1,000' above the city on the Flatirons.

[Guest happ]

The upper trough reaches into California; chance for snow at Tahoe tomorrow.

[Black Hole]

Winter storm warning for most of western Montana. Warning says 6-12" on the plains and 12-14" in the mountains, at least near Great Falls anyway.

I had some lake effect rain squalls this morning with a few snow flakes mixing in. Looks like that will continue into the afternoon, but less lake based. 

 

[Front Ranger]

Almost 1 pm and still just 41 here.

[Thunder98]

It's only 37F and light rain in Grand Junction, CO.

 

[wx_statman]

25 degrees, wind NW 32g46 at a CWOP station near the Canadian border:

 

http://mesowest.utah.edu/cgi-bin/droman/meso_base_dyn.cgi?stn=E9495&unit=0&timetype=LOCAL

[Front Ranger]

Heavy rain and down to 36 here. Seeing a few flakes mix in. Could see our first freeze tonight.

[crf450ish]

Heavy rain and down to 36 here. Seeing a few flakes mix in. Could see our first freeze tonight.

 

You ever make it the Gunnison or Crested Butte area?

[Front Ranger]

You ever make it the Gunnison or Crested Butte area?

 

I've been through Gunnison once...it's a long ways from here.

[Kayla]

Down to 28F and snowing in Great Falls with a current wind chill value of 14F. What month is it again??

 

Already down to 30F here with flurries.

[Kayla]

Snow officially being reported at the Bozeman Airport for the first time this season as of 2115 with a temp of 32F and a dewpoint of 23F.

 

Bozeman MSU is down to 29F and I'm down to 26F with light snow falling and accumulating. It's definitely not a wet snow, very dry and fluffy now. Feels like winter is here!

[Timmy]

Snow officially being reported at the Bozeman Airport for the first time this season as of 2115 with a temp of 32F and a dewpoint of 23F.

 

Bozeman MSU is down to 29F and I'm down to 26F with light snow falling and accumulating. It's definitely not a wet snow, very dry and fluffy now. Feels like winter is here!

Do you think you will be tired of it 7 months from now in April?

[epiceast]

Raining at 36/32, should turn to snow soon

[Kayla]

Do you think you will be tired of it 7 months from now in April?

 

Never! But you're right, come late Spring (May/early June) you'll have to check back with me and see if I'm ready for summer. But as of right now... Let it snow, let it snow until July 4th!

[wx_statman]

It's chaos in Havre. A foot of snow, trees down, and power outages. The ASOS sensor has been down since 7pm local time, but recorded nearly 5 continuous hours of heavy snow and blizzard conditions:

 

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=pqr&sid=khvr&num=60&raw=0&banner=off

 

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREAT FALLS MT
1001 PM MDT MON OCT 02 2017

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...
..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....
..REMARKS..

0957 PM HEAVY SNOW HAVRE 48.54N 109.68W
10/02/2017 M12.0 INCH HILL MT LAW ENFORCEMENT

SHERIFFS OFFICE REPORTS 10 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW HAS
FALLEN SO FAR AND IT IS STILL SNOWING HEAVILY. POWER IS
OUT IN TOWN AND THERE ARE NUMEROUS DAMAGED OR DOWNED
TREES AROUND TOWN AS WELL AS SOME TREES ON HOMES.

[Kayla]

It's chaos in Havre. A foot of snow, trees down, and power outages. The ASOS sensor has been down since 7pm local time, but recorded nearly 5 continuous hours of heavy snow and blizzard conditions:

 

http://www.wrh.noaa.gov/mesowest/getobext.php?wfo=pqr&sid=khvr&num=60&raw=0&banner=off

 

PRELIMINARY LOCAL STORM REPORT

NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE GREAT FALLS MT

1001 PM MDT MON OCT 02 2017

 

..TIME... ...EVENT... ...CITY LOCATION... ...LAT.LON...

..DATE... ....MAG.... ..COUNTY LOCATION..ST.. ...SOURCE....

..REMARKS..

 

0957 PM HEAVY SNOW HAVRE 48.54N 109.68W

10/02/2017 M12.0 INCH HILL MT LAW ENFORCEMENT

 

SHERIFFS OFFICE REPORTS 10 TO 12 INCHES OF SNOW HAS

FALLEN SO FAR AND IT IS STILL SNOWING HEAVILY. POWER IS

OUT IN TOWN AND THERE ARE NUMEROUS DAMAGED OR DOWNED

TREES AROUND TOWN AS WELL AS SOME TREES ON HOMES.

 

Crazy. Can't imagine nearly 40mph winds along with a foot of heavy wet snow on trees that are fully leafed out still. Going to be a long cold night for many up there.

 

Fortunately Bozeman's main power is all underground but I know many other cities in Montana have above ground power so I think we'll be seeing a lot of power outages in Central MT including the Great Falls area by morning.

[wx_statman]

Crazy. Can't imagine nearly 40mph winds along with a foot of heavy wet snow on trees that are fully leafed out still. Going to be a long cold night for many up there.

 

Fortunately Bozeman's main power is all underground but I know many other cities in Montana have above ground power so I think we'll be seeing a lot of power outages in Central MT including the Great Falls area by morning.

 

I'll be curious to see the snow totals for this one. It's already the greatest early season snowstorm on record for Havre.

[Kayla]

I'll be curious to see the snow totals for this one. It's already the greatest early season snowstorm on record for Havre.

 

Yeah. It will also be interesting to see what kind of lows we can pull off tomorrow night with clearing skies and a hefty snowpack for many. Looks like many daily record lows will be in jeopardy.

[Kayla]

Video as of about 45 minutes ago up in Havre. It's a lengthy video but just even watching the first few seconds you can clearly see the extensive damage there already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6C1I8-pZM&feature=youtu.be

 

Crazy to think that this area has been suffering from an extreme drought all summer.

[Guest happ]

Video as of about 45 minutes ago up in Havre. It's a lengthy video but just even watching the first few seconds you can clearly see the extensive damage there already. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Au6C1I8-pZM&feature=youtu.be

 

Crazy to think that this area has been suffering from an extreme drought all summer.

 

Trees are heavy with snow.  

[epiceast]

Changing over

[wx_statman]

Trained spotter reporting 14.8" in Havre for the calendar day 10/2, per NWS. 

[Kayla]

Dropped down to 19F early this morning and officially picked up 2" of dry snow. Up to 25F now and still snowing lightly.

 

Super slick on the roads this morning as initially the snow was melting on the roads, then froze and snow accumulated on top of the ice. Lots of accidents all over town and I90 is closed in Bozeman currently.

[Front Ranger]

Dropped down to 19F early this morning and officially picked up 2" of dry snow. Up to 25F now and still snowing lightly.

 

Super slick on the roads this morning as initially the snow was melting on the roads, then froze and snow accumulated on top of the ice. Lots of accidents all over town and I90 is closed in Bozeman currently.

 

D**n out-of-staters!

[Kayla]

First real test of the snow board today as well. Tough to find an area around here that avoids drifting with such dry snow. The yard stick I mounted is more for keeping track of base since it's not in the center of the board which is where I took the daily measurement.

 

You can also see the beginnings of my Davis setup that should be up and running later this week!

 

[Kayla]

d**n out-of-staters!

 

So true! Saw a Washington and a California plate in some ditches on my into work this morning. 

[wx_statman]

An interesting analog to the current pattern is early October 2000. Major early season Arctic outbreak into Montana in the first week of October (6 degrees in Havre on 10/5), with mid-70's on the backside in Portland - just like what is progged for this week. The 2000-01 winter was a weak Nina and also a significant drought in the PNW. Rather unusual case of a Nina producing neither meaningful rain nor meaningful Arctic air regionally.

[TT-SEA]

An interesting analog to the current pattern is early October 2000. Major early season Arctic outbreak into Montana in the first week of October (6 degrees in Havre on 10/5), with mid-70's on the backside in Portland - just like what is progged for this week. The 2000-01 winter was a weak Nina and also a significant drought in the PNW. Rather unusual case of a Nina producing neither meaningful rain nor meaningful Arctic air regionally.

 

 

Good information as always!

[Front Ranger]

So true! Saw a Washington and a California plate in some ditches on my into work this morning. 

 

It's just what everyone here says when there's accidents in the winter. Probably same there. 

[BLI snowman]

An interesting analog to the current pattern is early October 2000. Major early season Arctic outbreak into Montana in the first week of October (6 degrees in Havre on 10/5), with mid-70's on the backside in Portland - just like what is progged for this week. The 2000-01 winter was a weak Nina and also a significant drought in the PNW. Rather unusual case of a Nina producing neither meaningful rain nor meaningful Arctic air regionally.

 

Yeah, that was an oddball with a lot of split flow and slightly unfavorable blocking. The November/December cold period was epic in the Midwest and Rockies but missed greatness here by a few hundred miles.

[Front Ranger]

An interesting analog to the current pattern is early October 2000. Major early season Arctic outbreak into Montana in the first week of October (6 degrees in Havre on 10/5), with mid-70's on the backside in Portland - just like what is progged for this week. The 2000-01 winter was a weak Nina and also a significant drought in the PNW. Rather unusual case of a Nina producing neither meaningful rain nor meaningful Arctic air regionally.

 

On the other hand, 2000-01 was at the tail end of a strong, multi-year Nina. Also during rising, very active solar cycle. 

 

However, back on the original hand, the summer of 2000 was fairly similar nationally - though not locally in the PNW.

[Kayla]

An interesting analog to the current pattern is early October 2000. Major early season Arctic outbreak into Montana in the first week of October (6 degrees in Havre on 10/5), with mid-70's on the backside in Portland - just like what is progged for this week. The 2000-01 winter was a weak Nina and also a significant drought in the PNW. Rather unusual case of a Nina producing neither meaningful rain nor meaningful Arctic air regionally.

 

This is great info. Seems like the main difference this year is that in 2000 we were coming out of a major Niña whereas now we're coming out of weak Niña then to neutral warm and now neutral cold. Tough to find similar ENSO behavior recently. 

[TT-SEA]

The fall of 2000 was pretty nice... lots of dry periods.   No fire hose of endless rain at all.

 

In fact... there was no rain at all in my area from 11/9 - 11/23.   Two weeks is a long stretch of dry weather for November here.   It looks like it was pretty chilly in that period as well.

 

The entire winter featured meaningful dry periods.   It looks like it would have a been an enjoyable winter for me.   

[Front Ranger]

The fall of 2000 was pretty nice... lots of dry periods.   No fire hose of endless rain at all.

 

In fact... there was no rain at all in my area from 11/9 - 11/23.   Two weeks is a long stretch of dry weather for November here.   It looks like it was pretty chilly in that period as well.

 

The entire winter featured meaningful dry periods.   It looks like it would have a been an enjoyable winter for me. 

 

Only meaningful snow of the winter for you in Feb/Mar, though.