Mountain West Discussion

[Black Hole]

12z Euro looks pretty good for both of us, in my opinion. Just from a macro level.

You are definitely right. Lake effect is always fickle so I am hoping for the best.

[richard mann]

(.. cross-reference.)
 
http://theweatherforums.com/index.php/topic/933-fall-2015-colder-air-mass-movement-and-distribution-projections/?p=87453

[Snowman5678]

Agreed. However one thing we can take comfort in is that the ECMWF ensemble strongly favors some snowfall still. I suspect that flakes are highly likely, but that that actual accumulation will be minimal this go around.

 

The one thing that could swing in our favor is that the GSL is at record high temperatures and could provide a big boost to any passing storm.

 

Well hopefully we can get a little bit of accumulation. I went up to Alta yesterday and got a bit of a snow fix!

 

[Black Hole]

Well hopefully we can get a little bit of accumulation. I went up to Alta yesterday and got a bit of a snow fix!

 

Nice! I still don't know what's going to happen, but I suspect the ECMWF is the better model choice here. It shows minimal activity.

[Front Ranger]

12z Euro looks good again for multiple snow chances for both SLC and Denver areas.

[Black Hole]

12z Euro looks good again for multiple snow chances for both SLC and Denver areas.

Yeah the initial storm is fading out but this run showed some snow Friday and a blast of cold and snow next week.

[Snowman5678]

At least the mountains will still get a good coating of snow.

[luminen]

Any recent pics from Colorado? 

[Black Hole]

00z models all going the wrong direction, this event is now over. No heavy rain, no strong winds, no heavy snow, no real cold weather...all of which looked possible over the last few days.

 

Still think the odds are good of something this month so lets keep hoping!

[Front Ranger]

Any recent pics from Colorado? 

 

Did you see the ones I posted about a week ago? If not, scroll up this thread.

[Snowman5678]

00z models all going the wrong direction, this event is now over. No heavy rain, no strong winds, no heavy snow, no real cold weather...all of which looked possible over the last few days.

 

Still think the odds are good of something this month so lets keep hoping!

Disappointing. The weather has been so boring for the month of October, I was really looking forward to something interesting Hopefully stuff in the middle to long range don't fizzle out too like this one did.

[Front Ranger]

Wednesday night/Thursday morning system still looks like it could bring a little snow here.

[Black Hole]

Disappointing. The weather has been so boring for the month of October, I was really looking forward to something interesting Hopefully stuff in the middle to long range don't fizzle out too like this one did.

I still think we see our first flakes of the season, just nothing significant. But the one coming up sure does look impressive, I'd love to see it verify. If it happens and we can get some snow on the ground it could put us close to the record low for the date. But we got a week to go so I won't get too carried away just yet. We have seen storms split in the home stretch, but luckily this one if anything is modeled to be too far east (to hit us square on) so maybe that will work to our advantage. 

[Black Hole]

18z GFS shows three significant winter storms in the week two period. First one is modeled to arrive next Tuesday.  

[Snowman5678]

I still think we see our first flakes of the season, just nothing significant. But the one coming up sure does look impressive, I'd love to see it verify. If it happens and we can get some snow on the ground it could put us close to the record low for the date. But we got a week to go so I won't get too carried away just yet. We have seen storms split in the home stretch, but luckily this one if anything is modeled to be too far east (to hit us square on) so maybe that will work to our advantage. 

Yeah, the 18z was nice...still far out. And considering how much this fizzled so quickly...Hopefully some flakes will fall in the morning when I'm actually awake on Wednesday. 

[Front Ranger]

It's gonna be a snowy month for UT/CO. Count on it.

[Jesse]

It's gonna be a snowy month for UT/CO. Count on it.

Kiss of death.

[Black Hole]

Yeah, the 18z was nice...still far out. And considering how much this fizzled so quickly...Hopefully some flakes will fall in the morning when I'm actually awake on Wednesday. 

Some weak LES on Wed and/or thurs mornings seems pretty likely somewhere around the area. I still feel confident on that.

 

All model runs have been showing that storm around Nov 10th today but yeah, wait and see.

[Black Hole]

No change from yesterdays thoughts except that anything more than  few flurries is extremely unlikely for this event. The storm for next Tuesday is still on track, looks like a low end storm still (maybe 2-4" for example) but not bad for the start of the winter season.

[Front Ranger]

Temp at 45 now but dropped to 42 with a shower earlier. NWS calling for Tr-2" of snow tomorrow AM.

[Black Hole]

Temp at 45 now but dropped to 42 with a shower earlier. NWS calling for Tr-2" of snow tomorrow AM.

I had a brief snow shower this evening, so that was fun. A few more possible tomorrow and Friday morning. Still looking at a possible low-moderate event next week.

[Black Hole]

I had a brief but extremely heavy lake effect snow shower this morning. First accumulation of the season at 1/4". Looks like a little more tonight as I have been saying the last few days.

 

Lots of uncertainty with the system next Mon-Tues. Question is the same as this one, how much will it shear apart?

[Front Ranger]

I had a brief but extremely heavy lake effect snow shower this morning. First accumulation of the season at 1/4". Looks like a little more tonight as I have been saying the last few days.

 

Lots of uncertainty with the system next Mon-Tues. Question is the same as this one, how much will it shear apart?

 

Picked up about 1/4" here last night as well.

 

Should have lows in the 20s the next couple nights, maybe as low as 22-23 tomorrow night. Hohum for this time of year, but much colder than we've seen to this point.

[Black Hole]

We had some more snow showers this morning with no accumulation. A bit of an inversion builds in tomorrow but it will mix out Sunday with warm south winds.

 

Still no idea what will happen next week. 18z GFS and 00z GFS has basically no snow while the 12z ECMWF had 10", ensemble mean is about 5". Anyway, we just have to keep watching and waiting to see.

[PRISM]

Hi all:

 

It has been about 2 years since I last posted to the forum.  During this period I retired and moved to Santa Fe and now to Cheyenne from Portland, OR.

 

Anyway, I have created a lot of cool time lapse videos

Astro-photographs:  http://www.astrobin.com/users/NightSky/

and my collection of Northern Lights Photos:   http://latitude64photos.com

like this:  http://vimeo.com/136069744/

 

that you might enjoy.

 

Anyway, I hope to contribute when something interesting weatherwise or otherwise happens.

 

Regards,

 

PRISM

[Black Hole]

Hi all:

 

It has been about 2 years since I last posted to the forum.  During this period I retired and moved to Santa Fe and now to Cheyenne from Portland, OR.

 

Anyway, I have created a lot of cool time lapse videos

Astro-photographs:  http://www.astrobin.com/users/NightSky/

and my collection of Northern Lights Photos:   http://latitude64photos.com

like this:  http://vimeo.com/136069744/

 

that you might enjoy.

 

Anyway, I hope to contribute when something interesting weatherwise or otherwise happens.

 

Regards,

 

PRISM

Welcome back! Yeah we would love to hear from you more, especially if the SW gets a more interesting winter this year.

[Front Ranger]

Low of 25 this morning.

 

Tue night/Wed morning storm looking quick but potentially potent. Maybe 3"+ of snow for Denver metro in a 6 hour period.

[Black Hole]

Low of 25 this morning.

 

Tue night/Wed morning storm looking quick but potentially potent. Maybe 3"+ of snow for Denver metro in a 6 hour period.

Everything we were going to get seems to be shifting your way. Another potentially big system is now being shreaded on models to almost nothing. If this is going to be the theme this winter it will get old fast. Just yesterday the ECMWF was showing a foot of snow 4 days out, now its at 2", and the GFS is at about 1".

[Snowman5678]

Everything we were going to get seems to be shifting your way. Another potentially big system is now being shreaded on models to almost nothing. If this is going to be the theme this winter it will get old fast. Just yesterday the ECMWF was showing a foot of snow 4 days out, now its at 2", and the GFS is at about 1".

I'm sorry, I swear it's because I moved here!  

[Black Hole]

I'm sorry, I swear it's because I moved here!

Things have shifted so far its almost making it good again lol. Chance that the front could stall out and give some snow on mon night into tues.

[Jesse]

Things have shifted so far its almost making it good again lol. Chance that the front could stall out and give some snow on mon night into tues.

Hope you get something! Post pics if so.

[Snowman5678]

Things have shifted so far its almost making it good again lol. Chance that the front could stall out and give some snow on mon night into tues.

 

I've got my fingers crossed! It would certainly be quite nice! 

[Black Hole]

I've got my fingers crossed! It would certainly be quite nice! 

Looking like the cold front stalls over SLC tonight with snow likely. Probably a deep isothermal layer near freezing. Latest ECMWF hits us with heavy wrap around moisture as the low ejects NE to our SE. On top of all of that LES is still on track. 

 

These last minute model swings are killing me but at least in this case its a good thing. 

[weatherfan]

Looking like the cold front stalls over SLC tonight with snow likely. Probably a deep isothermal layer near freezing. Latest ECMWF hits us with heavy wrap around moisture as the low ejects NE to our SE. On top of all of that LES is still on track.

 

These last minute model swings are killing me but at least in this case its a good thing.

How much snow are you currently thinking for the Salt Lake City area this week in total? What about with lake effect? It looks like a thunderstorm or two is likely late this afternoon or this evening as the cold front swings through. What are your thoughts about the likelihood of this?

[Front Ranger]

Looks like a nice band of precip this evening for SLC area. Will be a matter of how fast temps can cool for accumulation. Like you said, Black Hole, even if that doesn't work out everywhere (I'm sure areas with higher elevation will do fine tonight), chances look decent for lake effect later tomorrow.

 

NWS is going with 2-4" tomorrow night here. Hopefully this will be one of those storms that delivers on both sides of the Rockies.

[Front Ranger]

The front has passed, strong northerly winds outside. Been too long 

[Black Hole]

How much snow are you currently thinking for the Salt Lake City area this week in total? What about with lake effect? It looks like a thunderstorm or two is likely late this afternoon or this evening as the cold front swings through. What are your thoughts about the likelihood of this?

Sorry I missed this and couldn't answer before the event. Didn't end up with much accumulation in the valleys but it was a good storm. The first night there was about an inch of snow towards Ogden in spots. I had snow that didn't stick. The next day it snowed all day at the U but didn't stick much again. Sandy had 1-2" with that. Then this morning I had a dusting on everything again.

 

The exciting pattern will continue though with the next cold front on Monday. Should see our coldest temps so far and some snow with it. Details are unclear at this point though.

 

 

[Front Ranger]

Woke up to 4" this morning. Temps were right around freezing so it was pretty sloppy, but surprisingly a lot was still left by the end of the day even though it was sunny from 10 am on and got into the low 40s. Very windy this evening with lots of blowing snow in spots.

[Black Hole]

Everything is still on track with models converging on a solution for Monday. Looks like several inches of snow and the coldest air of the season. 700mb temps of near -15C will probably keep us near freezing Monday. May see a brief warm up before a cold system with more snow hits around next Thursday. More uncertainty with this one, but models are converging towards the colder solution once again. 

[Black Hole]

18z GFS looks nice, and ECMWF ensemble is crazy cold. These are notoriously inaccurate for surface temperatures but the mean shows a high of 25 and a low of 10 with the blast late next week.