1:30pm

Huge News!

Before getting to the snow I wanted to update you all on some good news. At the end of  December, I was contacted by County Commissioner Gwen Lachelt to inform me that the county was awarded a grant to fund a new radar facility in the county and she wanted me involved in some capacity. A couple of days ago I was contacted by the interim County Manager Chuck Stevens who asked me to be part of the site selection team for the location of the radar. Yesterday I was on a conference call with a number of people at the local, state and federal level to discuss preliminary sites. I was asked to keep things under my hat initially, but the Herald contacted me for comments (which I referred to the County) so I presume the information will be in the publics hands very soon.

I can’t tell you what a valuable resource this will be for not only weather and severe storm prediction but for water management and conservation. The lack of proper surface level radar has been a huge problem in SW Colorado. It was something I talked about when I first launched DurangoSnowLover’s nearly 7 years ago, seeing it come together and being asked for input on the project is a huge honor!

Now back to your regularly scheduled weather update…

The last couple of days have been dominated by high pressure with a ridge going up over us. This what that looks like. The red and yellow do not indicate warmth the thickness of the airmass, in this case, they would refer us being under “high heights” or simply high pressure.

There have been some valley areas affected inversion caused clouds and fog in the mornings, but for the most part, clear skies have prevailed. When you are under a ridge and high clouds stream in that is referred to as a “dirty ridge”. Just as those clouds can stream in sometimes a little disturbance will drift in as well. That may happen late tomorrow night. Here is what looks like. This is a little bit of energy and moisture coming under the ridge Thursday around 11 pm.

The Canadian models were the first to pick up on this, but now the Euro has also shifted in this direction.

Here is what that would look like Thursday late night. The lighter the color of blue, the lighter rate of snowfall.

Friday morning at 5 am

The snow accumulation would be slightly higher than what you see here as temps should stay in the mid-20s if the model is correct.

Yeah, I know, nothing exciting but when I woke up this morning I was planning on doing a post today talking about snow being 7-10 days away.  In the past when a ridge starts weakening and letting systems through it sets the stage for it breaking down completely or at least migrating and opening up the storm track. The GFS is a bit out of phase right now, it is not unusual for this to happen the GFS historically has always scored in the 3rd position of accuracy.

The model could flip back to nothing, but I was encouraged to see this, it shows you how quickly things can change.

Next update Thursday.

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