The Official 2009-2010 Denver winter weather thread

[PTPatrick]

Up to 14 inches downtown....Just saw the report of 20 inches in Westminster(I bet in that 5400+ foot high area around St Anthony's) Every little bit of gain in elevation makes it that much fluffier... buts it still crazy that its so close to me yet they have 6 more inches. New deep greens filling in on the radar and headed west to east across town.

[SCMedic]

I've easily got 24" on my backyard table. It's piled straight up in a wind protected zone!

[PTPatrick]

Thats pretty sweet SC...I have 17.5 right now, which is about as good a measurment as I can get. (the yard is very protected from N ad NE which is pretty much where the snow is coming from and otheriwse I am surrounded by pavemet). I think there may be a little more here actualy in the more open areas. In any case, the roads still amazingly dont look that bad, probably about 8 deep tire tracks from what I can see out the window. I cant believe I am going to work! If you had ever told me 18-24 inches of snow could fall and Denver would still functioning I would have said you are crazy. Oh well, time to go get dressed.

[Dencolo]

As of 8:00 a.m. Thursday. Still coming down nicely downtown...

Arvada: 18.5"
Black Hawk: 31.8"
Broomfield: 21.2"
Castle Rock 17.0"
Conifer: 28.0"
Denver (Downtown): 14.5"
Evergreen: 20.5"
Fairplay: 14.0"
Fort Collins: 19.0"
Genesee: 35.8"
Greeley: 10.5"
Ken Caryl: 27.2"
Lafayette: 18.0"
Littleton: 19.0"
Longmont: 13.0"
Louisville: 22.5"
Niwot: 13.0"
Northglenn: 13.0"
Parker: 18.9"
Roxborough Park: 24.0"
Westminster: 22.0"
Wheat Ridge: 21.0"

[Dencolo]

Most impressive from below is NW Denver at 23", Golden at 26"-32" and of course Pinecliff (in the foothills) at nearly 44". They will probably end up at or above 4".

As of 11:00 a.m. Thursday


Aurora (SE): 14.5"

Aurora: 16.3"

Centennial: 15.5"

Denver (NW): 23.0"

Eldorado Springs: 36.0"

Erie: 16.0"

Evergreen: 27.0"

Genesee: 36.5"

Golden: 26.0"

Golden: 32.0"

Highlands Ranch: 19.5"

Parker: 19.3"

Pinecliffe: 43.8"

Thornton: 14.0"

[vbhoutex]

All I can say is WOW!!

[Dencolo]

I like it when forecasters mention the weather at their house. Haha. I'm trying to determine a way to find out my end snow total. It will be depth + melting + compaction I suppose. Maybe I'll assume 2" of melting, but I'm not sure about compaction.

AREA FORECAST DISCUSSION
NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE DENVER CO
320 PM MDT THU OCT 29 2009

.SHORT TERM...OUR SLOW MOVING STORM IS CONTINUING TO BE REMARKABLY
SLOW EVEN TODAY. IT HAS BEEN A REMARKABLY GOOD EVENT WITH CLOSE TO
FOUR FEET UP COAL CREEK CANYON AND EVEN MY HOUSE EAST OF BOULDER
GETTING ABOUT 2 FEET WITH AROUND 2 INCHES OF MELTED.

[Dencolo]

Over 2' of snow for me at this point. Also, not too often do you see The Highlands beat out Castle Rock. The Highlands is pretty close to downtown.

As of 4:00 p.m. Thursday

Parker 23.1"
8 miles SE Watkins 19.2"
Boulder 18.8"
Broomfield 20.0"
4 miles NW Elizabeth 16.0"
Evergreen 38.5"
Conifer 37.0"


As of 1:00 p.m. Thursday

8 miles SE Watkins 18.0" (5 foot drifts)
Genesee 37.4"
7 miles E Parker 13.5"
Federal Heights 16.0"
Louviers 22.0"
Castle Rock 21.5"
Littleton 24.5"
Simla 5.5"
Greeley 12.0"
Westminster 27.7"
Aurora 16.3"
Centennial 15.5"
4 miles WSW Eldorado Springs 36.0"
Golden 26.0"
NW Denver 23.0" (Highlands neighborhood)

[Stephanie]

My father said that he had at least 10 - 15 inches of snow from this storm down in Rye, Co. For those not familiar, that's in the south-central part of the state, southwest of Pueblo. He's in the Wet Mountain valley.

[PTPatrick]

Looks like despite steady snow today there was in fact some melting even on grassy areas...however, I measured 20 on the side of my house is a relatively sheltered area. Pretty crazy stuff. In the exposed part of the yard there is only about 14 inches left.

[CajunMama]

No snowless winter for you guys this year, eh?

[PTPatrick]

http://www.crh.noaa.gov/news/display_cm ... 4&source=0


NWS has posted the final map of snowfall for this storm. Pretty impressive to say the least. Pretty much everybody from Northglenn soutward recieved at least a foot with most of the Metro( save for the Northeast metro) got in the vicinity of 20 inches. Some interesting things on the map:

1) MOST of Denver country got more than the southeast portion of Douglas county, Western Elbert County, and the Bailey area. That is pretty unusual in an upsloap storm.
2) you can clearly see the downsloap effect off the Cheyenne ridge with areas just north of Fort Collins in a sort of snow minimum...this is also evident in teh Colorado springs area.
3) There is the small minimum in the area of NE Boulder county...this was actually there in the Blizzard of 2003 also.

[Dencolo]

Very cool map, thanks. You know when they make a map of a storm, it was a big one. I clicked on the interactive map and it gave some good readings for my area - probably around 25.5" in Littleton. Castlerock usually gets more than we do, but we got hammered pretty good this time. The sun is fierce today and it's supposed to get near 60 - major snowmelt day....

[Dencolo]

Wow, 2nd coldest October in Denver history!

...OCTOBER 2009 BECOMES DENVER'S SECOND COLDEST MONTH...
...OCTOBER 2009 HAS MOVED INTO 5TH SNOWIEST OCTOBER...
...NEW RECORD HIGH WIND GUST OF 54 MPH ON THE 5TH...

IT WAS AN EVENTFUL OCTOBER AS COLD TEMPERATURES PREVAILED AND A STRONG LATE
OCTOBER WINTER SNOW STORM THAT MOVED ACROSS DENVER.

THERE WERE 5 LOW TEMPERATURE RECORDS EITHER TIED OR BROKEN AND 1 HIGH
TEMPERATURE TIED. RECORD LOWS WERE ESTABLISHED ON OCTOBER 2ND...9TH AND 10TH.
A TIED RECORD LOW WAS ESTABLISHED ON THE 3RD. A NEW RECORD LOW MAXIMUM WAS SET
ON THE 26TH. ONLY ONE RECORD THAT DEALT WITH WARM TEMPERATURES WAS A TIED
RECORD HIGH ON THE THE 18TH. THE MONTH'S TEMPERATURES RANGED FROM A
THE TIED RECORD HIGH OF 84 DEGREES ON THE 18TH DOWN TO A LOW TEMPERATURE OF 17
DEGREES...ALSO A RECORD ON THE 10TH. THE AVERAGE TEMPERATURE FOR THE 10TH WAS
A VERY CHILLY 22 DEGREES. THE MONTH'S AVERAGE TEMPERATURE WAS ONLY 42.9
DEGREES WHICH MOVED OCTOBER 2009 INTO THE 2ND COLDEST OCTOBER IN DENVER
WEATHER HISTORY. THE COLDEST OCTOBER WAS A VERY FRIGID 39.0 DEGREES WHICH
WAS RECORDED IN 1969. THERE WERE 17 DAYS WHEN THE LOW TEMPERATURES WERE 32
DEGREES OR LOWER WHEREAS THE NORMAL AMOUNT IS ONLY 9. THREE HIGH TEMPERATURES
DID NOT MAKE IT TO THE FREEZING MARK WHICH IS 3 ABOVE NORMAL.

A STRONG WINTER STORM MOVED ACROSS THE DENVER METRO AREA WHICH INVOLVED
3 DAYS...27TH THROUGH THE 29TH. 15.3 INCHES OF SNOW WAS OFFICIALLY MEASURED
AT THE DENVER INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT (DIA). THIS STORM HELPED TO MOVE THE MONTH
INTO 5TH SNOWIEST OCTOBER WITH A TOTAL OF 17.2 INCHES. THERE WERE NUMEROUS
PLACES AROUND THE METRO AREA THAT MEASURED SNOW ABOVE 20 INCHES. IT HAS BEEN
A LONG TIME SINCE DENVER HAS BEEN ABOVE NORMAL FOR SNOWFALL IN OCTOBER. THE
17.2 INCHES WAS 9.0 INCHES ABOVE THE NORMAL OF 6.2 INCHES. THIS WINTER STORM
ACCOUNTED FOR 0.69 INCH OF THE OCTOBER TOTAL MOISTURE WHICH WAS A RESPECTABLE
1.39 INCHES. THIS WAS 0.37 INCH ABOVE THE NORMAL OF 0.99 INCH. IT WAS NOT
ENOUGH LIQUID TO GET INTO THE TOP 10 WETTEST. EIGHT DAYS HAD MEASURABLE
MOISTURE WITH 5 MEASURING 0.10 INCH OR MORE. NO RECORDS FOR PRECIPITATION WERE
SET OR TIED DURING OCTOBER 2009.

THERE WERE NO THUNDERSTORMS RECORDED AT DIA. EIGHT DAYS HAD DENSE FOG
OBSERVED WHICH IS VISIBILITY OF 1/4 MILE OR LESS. THE NORMAL AMOUNT OF DENSE
FOG AT DIA IS 1. THE PEAK WIND WAS 54 MPH FROM A SOUTHWEST DIRECTION ON THE
5TH. THIS ESTABLISHED A NEW HIGH WIND GUST SURPASSING THE OLD RECORD OF 48
MPH SET IN 1990.

[Scott Patterson]

Tomorrow and the next day is supposed to be 74F in Denver.

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.ph ... 2=-104.873

Even in Craig, it was officially 68 downtown today! This morning was 12F at the house and 18F downtown, but it sure warmed up quickly!

[somethingfunny]

Tomorrow and the next day is supposed to be 74F in Denver.

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.ph ... 2=-104.873

Even in Craig, it was officially 68 downtown today! This morning was 12F at the house and 18F downtown, but it sure warmed up quickly!

Have you got any snow left on the ground?

[Dencolo]

Tomorrow and the next day is supposed to be 74F in Denver.

http://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.ph ... 2=-104.873

Even in Craig, it was officially 68 downtown today! This morning was 12F at the house and 18F downtown, but it sure warmed up quickly!

Have you got any snow left on the ground?

Still a few inches in Denver in shaded north facing areas only. But it's in the mid 70s so that is melting fast. By this weekend even the huge piles they made to clear the parking lots of snow will be pretty much melted.

Since Craig didn't receive much snow I suppose their's melted pretty fast.

[SCMedic]

Ready for the winter storm track to set in. Rode A-basin Sat and Sun and I'm ready for the big powder days!

[VoodooCadillac]

How was A Basin?

Looks like pattern might be getting back to "normal" by the end of the week - instead of the extremes we've been experiencing.

[SCMedic]

A-basin is open to the top, couple of runs. Nice soft snow in the afternoon sun. Great day!