4/15/24 Monday 7:30 am

A bit of energy is going to race through our area later today. It will be the trigger to ignite severe storms in the midwest later today and tomorrow. The system will encounter warm moist air and convection will explode across the plain states.

We have been fooled by these types before. The system knows where it wants to go and will spend very little time in our vicinity before it jumps over us and heads into Kansas and Nebraska. If I lived in Kansas and Nebraska I would already be heading out to get into place for afternoon storm chasing.

Here is the affected area today:

Here is Tuesday:

The GFS model is a little too ambitious in our area with the high-elevation snow accumulations (in my opinion). I anticipate light accumulations of 1 to 3 inches by tomorrow with a dusting in the mid-elevation areas and possibly the low elevations.

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4/13/24 Saturday 7:15 am

There has not been a lot to talk about this week. I expected gradual warming with a return to spring-like conditions by late in the week. I mentioned a chance of a storm this weekend.  That now looks like a weak high-elevation precipitation event for this Monday/Tuesday.

Totals from this event have been trending down, I would not be surprised if little to no precipitation makes it to the ground in the lower and mid-elevation areas.

After that, boring weather returns. There is a chance we could see some light April showers by next weekend, but that is what I thought last weekend. We will see…

Welcome to shoulder season.

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4/7/24 Sunday 9:40 am

When I woke up yesterday, I thought we had just another disappointing storm coming in on the low end of expectations. By late morning the leftovers showed up and they were formidable.  At least, for those of us west of Durango. Snow squalls developed as the colder air moved across the area—periods of heavy snow from Dolores to Dwest and Lightner Creek. The snow fired back up in the higher elevations as well, delivering a few more inches to the overnight totals.

At the end of the day, the models did a pretty-good on the accumulations. I stuck with the lower amounts and they were all within range of verifying.

I don’t need snow reports, however, I am curious how far east the snow squalls occurred. I was driving home from shopping. I was on 160 heading west, as I left the Durango city limits I could see the squalls just as I passed Lightner Creek. By 1 pm the temperature at DwII was down to 29 degrees with snow, blowing snow and high winds. Squalls would blow through, then the sun would come out and start melting everything. This happened until late in the afternoon.  If this storm had occurred in February we would have had considerably higher totals.

Monday will be the coolest day of the week, with a good chance of snow showers in the higher elevations. There will be a chance of rain in the lower elevations and mixed precipitation in the mid-elevations.

Spring returns By Wednesday and temperatures will warm up and things will dry out. The next chance of a storm will be, you guessed it, next weekend!

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4/5/24 Friday 3:40 pm

Spring=Wind. Wind season is here, I know it is not everyone’s favorite but it is seasonal in SW Colorado for the next few months.

Not surprisingly, the storm has slowed down, delaying precipitation onset until later this evening and tonight. The good news is with that late arrival, we may see a couple of inches of accumulating snow down to 6,500 by Saturday morning.

There are a few Winter Weather Advisories that begin at 6 pm and last 24 hours. I am not bullish on the higher amounts.

The Purgatory area should be able to accumulate 5 to 9 inches by tomorrow afternoon. The 550 passes could pick up slightly more. Telluride should be in the 5 to 9 range as well. Wolf Creek should end up with 8 to 12 inches all said and done.

Up to 2 inches of snow before melting could fall at or above 6,500 feet. 2 to 4 inches below 7,800 with 3 to 5 inches above 7,800 feet.

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4/4/24 Thursday 11:40 am

Over the next 24 hours, the next development will be the opportunity for high winds. This is in advance of what looks like a much better organized storm system which will take aim on the forecast area Friday evening and Saturday.

This is not going to be a big system, nonetheless, it could deliver 5 to 10 inches of snow in the higher elevations. Based on the timing, I would not rule out some early morning snow at or above 6,500 early Saturday morning.

Do not be surprised to see some “dust-snow” in the higher elevations as this southwest system ramps up on Friday. Also, people sensitive to dust in the air may want to stay indoors on Friday afternoon.

I have been getting a surprising number of emails regarding the weather for the eclipse next week Monday. When the total eclipse occurred last year in SW Colorado, I did not get nearly as many emails. I assume it is because the state with the second-highest number of my followers is Texas.

Unfortunately, I cannot accurately forecast the conditions at this time. It looks like showers will develop along the SE Coast of Texas in the morning and spread northwest, towards the path of totality. The models do not show rain, but at least one model shows 100% cloud cover. We will see, I will keep an eye on it. Thunderstorms in April in Texas are very difficult to forecast against.

My next update will be Friday afternoon.

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3/31/24 Sunday 12:30 pm

The only news in the last 6 hours or so, is confirmation that the models continue to be too quick in introducing heavier precipitation into the area. Light snow has been very slow getting underway.

As of noon, snow had not started falling at Wolf Creek yet. A quick peek outside shows some very light mystery precipitation starting to fall with a temperature of 42 degrees.

As far as the forecast goes, I won’t be changing anything, however, I have a couple of quick observations:

The GFS and Canadian models currently show two to three times more precipitation than the European.

If the heaviest precipitation arrives much later (like after dark) amounts could be higher than the models are suggesting.

The GFS and Canadian continue to show snow returning to the mountains by late tomorrow morning/afternoon and continuing through Monday evening, this presents a couple of issues.

There is an existing Winter Weather Advisory above 9,000 feet. It started at 6 am this morning and ends at 6 am Monday. This may need to be adjusted/extended because it was based on bad model timing. At this rate, 8 or 9 (or more) hours of the stale advisory have already been wasted because of bad data.

I could also make a case for the energy with this low pressure mostly dropping too far south into New Mexico which may make even the European precipitation forecasts too high.

Other than that, everything looks great… It looks like we could see a couple of more storms over the next 10 days or so. I expect more after that before the end of April. Hopefully, we can finish big with a massive storm that gives forecasters a better chance of predictability.

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3/31/24 Sunday 7:45 am

The tricky split low set-up is giving the models fits with forecasting this storm. As expected, nothing happened last night. My intuition was correct in waiting for additional model runs.

The main low pressure detached and is offshore west of Los Angeles.  The other low is over Central Utah, and a new area of low pressure has developed over the Great Salt Lake.

Unfortunately, there is still a huge spread in the precipitation forecasts. Often times when we have this split flow set up, the models never agree on the outcome, even during the storm. Fortunately, we have not had this type of setup very often, at least not this year.

While the models still disagree on the duration of this storm, and how strong the secondary wave will be tomorrow, they do somewhat agree, that precipitation should get underway between 10 am and 2 pm today. It should also increase later this afternoon.

I will watch the new model runs as they come out this morning. In the meantime, here is a ballpark forecast for this storm.

Purgatory, Rico, Silverton, 6 to 10 inches.

Mid-elevation areas adjacent to Purgatory 4 to 8 inches.

Telluride, Red Mountain, 5 to 10 inches with a chance of an upside surprise late Monday.

Wolf Creek 10 to 14 inches.

My next update will be out around 1 pm.

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3/30/24 Saturday 3:50 pm

After taking in the latest model runs and surface maps, I have chosen to give the models another 12 hours of run time. This will push my forecast back until early Sunday morning.

Here is the latest surface map

The models are not in agreement on the track and intensity of the low-pressure well to our west. It may start snowing in the higher elevations before I put out my forecast but at least I should be more confident about it. I do not expect any impactful accumulation if any before I post my forecast.

With this storm, I expect the higher elevations to get advisory-level snow in the 6 to 12 inch range, with Wolf Creek potentially going a little higher in its totals. I expect a mixed bag of precipitation below 8,000 feet, with a mix of accumulating and melting snow lower than that.

Snow will linger into Monday before ending late Monday night/Tuesday morning.

I will do my best to get that forecast out before 8 am.

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3/28/24 Thursday 2:15 pm

Snow showers will develop tonight and into tomorrow morning, mostly across the northern third of the forecast area. The showers should fizzle out during the day on Friday.

Snow will move back in late Saturday into Sunday morning. The snow and rain will become more widespread on Sunday morning. Travel impacts are possible by Sunday afternoon across the higher elevations as heavier snow builds in (especially in locations above 8,000 feet).

The snow will likely linger throughout the day on Monday before moving out of the area late Monday or early Tuesday.

By late next week or next weekend, some models indicate that we will be entering an extended period of wet weather with heavy mountain snow and abundant showers in the lower elevations.

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3/26/24 Tuesday 9:45 am

Very few surprises with the quick-moving storm. Across the mid-elevations, 3 to 9 inches fell. Telluride and Wolf Creek were able to squeeze-out 15 inches with the last storm.

For today, expect snow showers to develop with light rain possible in the lower elevations. Light snow showers may redevelop in the high country Wednesday through Saturday. On Sunday we may see another storm move into the area from Southern California. At the moment, the models are considering several solutions for the So Cal storm.

Hopefully, we will have better information in the next couple of days. We should also see a warm-up going into the weekend. If the storm does affect our area, I expect it to at least start warm with rain in the lower elevations.

There have been some improvements in the European extended model in the last year. They doubled the ensemble members to 100. What this means is they run 100 versions of the model to determine the average output, in theory, this should make it more reliable.

I have closely monitored this long-range model for the last couple of spring seasons to get a handle on how winter ends. Eventually, I will use it to attempt to forecast the monsoon season’s beginning (or existence).

For now through the end of April, the model is not ambiguous at all. It shows well below-average temperatures and above-average precipitation.

The maps below show the forecasted temperature and precipitation anomalies through May 9th.

This map shows how far below average the daily temperatures are forecasted to be.

Here are the liquid equivalent precipitation forecasts. These are not the total precipitation, rather the amount forecasted is the total amount above average for this period.

My next update will be out later this week.

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