Warm and pleasant weather through Thursday.
Then, a system to our north (a weaker version of this past weekend’s storm, i.e., a significant closed low way to our north) pass us on Friday evening and Saturday morning. The American, Canadian, and European Models are all calling for one inch, while the UK Met is the optimistic outlier calling for four inches.
After a brief respite on Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning, a disorganized and messy low pressure system looks decently likely to hit our patrol zone, coming from the Pacific Northwest. The snow is forecasted to fall on Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon. Here are the model forecasts for that system:
6” – Canadian Model
4” – American Model
1” – European Model
Then, around next Wednesday (5/4) some models predict another round of snow while others do not. Here are the model forecasts for that system:
7” – Canadian Model
5” – European Model
0” – American Model
In all, nothing major but hopefully we’ll get at least some snow over the next eight days. The most optimistic is the Canadian Model at 14” total for this upcoming period. Fingers’ crossed.
Retrospective Discussion:
The weekend storm performed better than forecasted. Yeah! Without the snowstake cam at Eldora running, here’s my best guesswork. The Lake Eldora Snotel reported 1.0” SWE (i.e., snow water equivalent) from the weekend storm. Midseason, for an average storm in our patrol zone I’d guestimate that to be 12-15”. However as this is a late season and warmer storm (though cold by late April standards), I’d guestimate that the 1.0” SWE translates to about 10” of snow. Regardless of the accuracy of my guestimate, the storm blew all of the forecasts out of the water. The UK Met Model was the only one that did a decent job. The Canadian model underpredicted the storm by half, the European and WRF Models did even worse, and the American Model predicted 1/10 of what actually fell.
-Jordan (Tuesday (4/26) 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.
