Forecast Summary:
Snow on and off for the next week.
Forecast Discussion:
Thursday was a great snow day, and we have another inch or two in store for us this afternoon. Saturday morning will be windy with highs in the low 30s. Sunday may see some strong gusts with highs upper 20s.
1-4” of snow likely on Monday, and then perhaps a bigger system on Wednesday and Thursday. For that system, the American Model is calling for 5.5”, the Canadian Model is calling for 7”, and the European Model is calling for 5”.
Retrospective Discussion:
With Eldora’s snow-stake webcam down, we have to look to the Snotel sites to figure out the amount of snow. Joel Gratz reported 12” of snow from his review. The increase in SWE at the Lake Eldora Station is 1.2”, so if the water content was 12% (my best guess), that gives us 10”. So, figure we got somewhere between 10-12”. So, how did the models do?
First, it’s amazing that both the European and Canadian models predicted this storm with some accuracy six days out! (Read two posts ago to see the details.) Canadian was closest with a 7” prediction, but the fact that basically a week out both were predicting real snow around this time is amazing.
When we look at the Tuesday morning model runs compared to what occurred, the Canadian, American, and European models all did a nice job, while the NAM was a bit too optimistic, and the WRF was way too optimistic. My best guess on Tuesday was 8-15”, which seems just about spot-on considering we got 10-12”.
-Jordan (Friday morning)
Note: Unless otherwise noted, all forecasts are for 10,000’ in exposed areas. References to American Model are the American (GFS) Model. References to the Canadian Model are the Canadian (GDPS) Model. References to the WRF Model are the CAIC WRF Hi-Res Model. References to the European Model are the European (ECMWF) Model.
