Current warm weather will soon depart as an interesting system pulling moisture from both the northwest and the southwest looks to cross our patrol zone late on Wednesday. Hard to tell how big (or small) it will be as the exact location of the low, shape of the low, and how quickly the low departs Colorado could all make large differences in total snow amounts. Unfortunately, while there’s an upslope component to it, the models aren’t calling for strong easterly winds. So, it may make the drive up to the mountains snowier than the mountains themselves. Here are the model forecasts for this system for our patrol zone:
8” – WRF Model
6” – Canadian and American Models
5” – UK Met Model
3” – European Model
No snow for a while after Wednesday, with the next shot around Monday (2/21) or Tuesday (2/22), with the American Model being optimistic it’ll be decent sized (6”+) while the Canadian and European Models are not as optimistic.
Retrospective Discussion:
Friday night was awesome with 7-8” of fresh snow. All models (and my forecast) woefully underpredicted the storm, with the Canadian and European Models calling for 3”, the American and WRF Models calling for 2”, and the UK Met and HRRR Models calling for 1”. Wow was everyone off! A combination of upslope flow, a jet streak assist, and perfect temperatures for dendritic growth meant that the models (and I) were wonderfully wrong.
Cheers.
-Jordan (Monday 2/14/22 evening)
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.
