After a seemingly never ending ridge of high pressure dominating our weather for too long, we finally have some better weather to talk about! After a very warm day today (12/9), weather starts to change tomorrow (12/10). A system, currently west of the Baja Peninsula works its way towards Colorado, while a weak system approach from the northwest. These systems look to give us snow from Thursday evening through Saturday. Temperatures look pretty good for snow production during this storm. There’s also an upslope component to the storm (not atypical considering much of the storm comes from the southwest) but the easterly winds don’t look strong enough to give us a huge upslope punch of snow. Here are the model forecasts (with almost astonishing agreement among the global models):
Canadian, American, UKMet, and European Models – 5”
WRF Model – 4”
NAM Model – 1.5”
Unrevealed in the above numbers is the large disagreement between the winning location of the storm, with the American and WRF Models calling for the most snow on the divide, while the European and UKMet Models calling for the most snow in the Front Range corridor.
So, what’s my best guess? With such model agreement I think we’re likely to see the 4-6” of snow. However, (and maybe this is my desperation for snow), I’d be less surprised with getting more than 4-6” than getting less than 4-6”. Some of the models tend to underestimate snow, temperatures look good, and the upslope winds although not great are at least okay. Let’s hope I’m right.
After the Thursday to Saturday system, the next system comes out of the west for a quick shot of snow on Sunday or Monday – in the 0-2” range.
A brief ridge of high pressure looks to return early next week, followed by a hopefully more stormy period as we gaze out to the edges of forecast fairyland with perhaps a significant storm later next week.
Cheers.
-Jordan (Wednesday 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.
