Forecast:
Saturday (11/23): Partly cloudy with a high in the low 30s. West winds in the 10-20 mph range with gusts to 40.
Sunday (11/24): Partly cloudy with a high in the low 30s. West winds in the 15-25 mph range with gusts to 50.
Forecast Discussion:
It’s great to be back to a snowy pattern. Eldora picked up 4-5” on Wednesday and Wednesday night. Depending upon the model, there should be another 2-3” (NAM and GFS); 3-4” (CAIC WRF) or 5-8” (Canadian) in our patrol zone between Thursday afternoon and Friday night. 2-8” doesn’t sound too silly-wide of a range to forecast, so let’s just go with that. The models tend to agree the numbers will increase the further north in our patrol zone one goes, or the closer to the Continental Divide one goes. This makes sense, especially as the winds will be shifting to the more typical westerly flow by Friday.
This weekend will be the break in the stormy weather.
Looking past this weekend, it will snow again on Monday into Tuesday. I’m struggling with how much we’ll likely get in this Monday / Tuesday storm as (i) both the American (GFS) Model and Canadian (GDPS) Model are calling for half a foot to foot of snow in the northern end of our patrol zone, (ii) the American Model is calling for similar amounts of snow on the southern end of our zone while the Canadian Model is basically calling for a dusting, and (iii) the decent winds from the west or west southwest that both models are predicting aren’t terribly favorable for our patrol zone. If you ask my role of the dice this far out, I’d guess we’re going to get a couple inches both days but nothing major, and more on the north end (Rock Creek) than the rest. Here’s to hoping the GFS Model is right, and I’m being too pessimistic.
Regardless, the good news is that it looks like there is a good stack of storms lined up after the Monday / Tuesday one to hit Colorado for the foreseeable future. Yeah!
As always, (i) the temperature / wind forecasts are for 10,000’ in unsheltered areas, and (ii) if you’re out skiing or snowshoeing in our patrol area, let me know what you see.
-Jordan (forecast as of Thursday afternoon)
