Denver LACK OF snow/winter thread

[PTPatrick]

Well, Denver is making a run at latest ever first snow. The past few years snow has always come in Octoober, and heck, has come to Denver even in late September. But this year, no dice. We have had about 10 minutes of flurries, at best. I am not sure if the snow stat powers that be will count that as the firs snow or not, but it didnt even wet the ground. The latest first snow in Denver was on November 21st, 1934. We have had quite a few close calls the past few weeks but the low pressure centers have just been to far south or east to get good upslope. The eastern plains out to Kansas/Nebraska have done well this year. We have a "small" chance late thursday/friday but that looks to be fizzling with each model run(much like the last few storms). For what ever reason they just arent materializing this year. The next chance would appear to be near the 20th, per GFS long range. So we could get close to latest first snow. We have had freezes so far, and believe it or not October precip came in slightly above average, so I think its still too soon to say this will be a drought winter.

As an aside, I have checked some websites and it appears ENSO is Nuetral. Some say that while its Neutral the atmostphere is still catching up and La nina conditions are persisting. Other websites forecast El Nino beginning during the winter. Who knows how this will all pan out. But I am afraid we are headed toward another dry winter here in Denver. This summer was VERY dry and the fall was only redeemed by a wetish october. Oddly enough the 1934 snow first came during the hight of the Dust Bowl although to be fair Denver had a good snow year in the 32-33 winter, and by most accounts Denver was spared the worst the Dust Bowl had to offer. If El nino does develop thats good news for Denver as that usually leads to high snowfall in late winter and spring, although some have attributed the 2006 December Blizzards to el nino driven moisture.

[SCMedic]

I have some thoughts for you... IT SUCKS! lol

Actually, I was pretty amazing that I was up on my sportbike at 10k feet last week. Normally riding season in the mountains is over way before now. They had a slight mention of snow tonight, but I think once again, that's falling apart.

[Extremeweatherguy]

Looks like, based on this youtube video ( http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0r6Kc8KAGmA ), that you guys finally managed to get some snow.

[PTPatrick]

Yep. As it usually turns out, when the weather guys give up and downplay a storm, something happens. We went from almost 70 degress thursday to snow Friday morning as I was getting up for work. IT was fairly brief and the ground was so warm that it wast able to accum much, but at the height of the showers there was probably about 2 inches on my car...

NOW THE REAL BAD news...long range GFS has NO, I repeat, NO storm system effecting it us through 16 days! I have never seen that this time of year. Normally its spinning up phantom blizzards that end up in Mexico. Yesterday it was showing something getting close for snow on Thanksgiving but now that seems out. this SUCKS.

[Dencolo]

If not for the dusting of snow that the airport got, we could have shattered the old record for latest first snowfall. There just doesn't seem to be anything on the horizon suggesting snow. The sad thing is, November is Denver's second snowiest month behind March. I am definately ready for some real snow.

[PTPatrick]

I wonder if the new snow records for this year will still be at Stapleton as opposed to DIA. I never heard what stapleton's total was for Friday morning. Stapleton has always been Denvers official measurement place for snow because the totals can vary so much from Downtown Denver to DIA. Lets hope they dont change it.

[Dencolo]

I wonder if the new snow records for this year will still be at Stapleton as opposed to DIA. I never heard what stapleton's total was for Friday morning. Stapleton has always been Denvers official measurement place for snow because the totals can vary so much from Downtown Denver to DIA. Lets hope they dont change it.

According to 9News, it is Stapleton that needed 0.10" inches of snow to qualify as Denver's first snow of the year. I think they got just over 1/2" inch. I agree, the amount of snow that can fall varies greatly between DIA, Downtown and Stapleton, with Stapleton typically getting the most of the three.

On another note, possible record high on Tueday? Needs to eclipse 74 at DIA.

[PTPatrick]

I would suspect that given how warm it got today...71 at my house in downtown, it was a little warmer than forecasted, so I could see Tuesday easily breaking the record...argh.

Its interesting about the different locations and whatnot. Its funny that even though DIA gets "less snow" than downtown, I have on more than one occasion driven from no snow downtown into crazy squalls at DIA, not to mention its usually colder out there. We did have more snow on the ground after the christmas storms of 2006, and 2007 than DIA itself. I think where DIA seems more susceptable to isolated snow squalls, downtown makes up for it with greater totals during strong upslope events. I never seem to notice much difference between Stapleton and Downtown. When I lived near Speer blvd greenway I used to do my own snow measurements and it always seemed dead on with stapleton, although a little more than stapleton with the right upslope conditions. I used to work in Centennial though, and it of course always got more than central denver. Funny topography around here...

[Scott Patterson]

I was in Denver yesterday, November 18. Officially 78F. Even Craig, which is usually quite cool in November had a high of 65! This is really weird. Usually there is a fair amount of snow on the ground by now. We had bigger snowstorms last June than we have so far this November.

[PTPatrick]

After a few days of balmy weather...78 Tuesday as Scott pointed out...woke up to flurries and a glaze of ice from the freezing drizzle in the air. That was the most "freezing rain" I have seen in Denver as it usually, thanks to the altitude able to snow or flurry rather than have freezing rain. In any case, it dried up by late this afternoon. Warm up again on the way and no seasonable thanksgiving snow is on the way at this point as a ridge supposedly builds in early next week. As an aside, some of the longer range GFS is showing a pretty persistent western trough from about Nov 26th on. I will hope for the best. Meanwhile, November 2006 was balmy an dry and it still turned come December and the rest of the winter Denver had snow on the ground, so I still hope

[PTPatrick]

http://www.nco.ncep.noaa.gov/pmb/nwprod ... n_156l.gif


Turkey day Blizzard taking shape from Eastern CO eastward? PLEASE MAKE THIS HAPPEN. I am so hurting for snow.
Certainly subject to change between now and then though and NWS isnt jumping on it just yet, still calling Thanksgiving sunny at 51. both WCMWF and GFS have been hinting at trough though come late next week. GFS has vacillated between a strong trough to weaker one but in most runs it still brings in a trough by Black Friday. My little fingers are now officially crossed.

[SCMedic]

That would be amazing! I'm sick of this warm weather. It's time for snow!

[Scott Patterson]

Speaking of mild weather, if the long term forecast are right, this will be the first November I've seen here without a below zero temperature. So far the coldest has been 2F at the house and 6F downtown. This is really weird. It's also weird have below zero temps in April, but none in November.

[Dencolo]

http://www.rap.ucar.edu/weather/model/displayMod.php?var=gfs_sfc_ptyp&hours=hr072hr084hr096hr108hr120hr132hr144hr156hr168hr180

Forecast is looking good starting at hour 132. Hopefully this pans out. Colorado is at 49% snowpack as of a few days ago, and if anything it's getting lower everyday with the lack of moisture and temps.

[SCMedic]

We can hope.. No one here is really jumping on that solution yet. Although, they have upped the possibility of precip for Thurs/Fr.

[PTPatrick]

Well the GFS backed off the blizzard, but it would still appear that a storm moves in thursday evening with good shot of front range snow. The first weekend of the Christmas season should pan out to be quite seasonal. In fact, as the weekend and the next week go on, GFS seems to bring in shots of snow every few days, with a motherload of arctic high pressure come late the first week of December. Who knows what will happen, but hopefully we can get a good snow cover in the front range by mid December. and if we can get close to 10 inches by Nov 30th then we will have caught up(I know 10 inches is a long shot). It was only 95 years ago that Denver got its worst series of storms ever racking up 50+ inches in a weeks time from Dec 1 to Dec 6 1913.

[SCMedic]

Looks like the latest runs are decidedly less organized by Thurs/Fri.. Hopefully will still pan out with some snow for the frontrange/Denver..

[PTPatrick]

sounds like boulder office isnt resigned to the idea of this being a new mexico storm yet in the sunday afternoon disc. I guess ECMWF and many GFS ensembles still take it more into southern colorado. I am not giving up yet, although the 12z GFS with essentially NO qpf over the front range is disheartening.

[SCMedic]

What an overall dissapointing forecast. Snow already!!

[SCMedic]

Still some talk of light snow here Thursday.. Model runs have flip flopped quite a bit, so I don't have a whole lot of confidence. Keeping the fingers crossed!