I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving. We watched the Lions lose in the fourth quarter (again)-who do they think they are? The Broncos? Anyway, we had a fantastic meal, it was a nice day even without snow. Being me, I woke up and looked outside at 2 am-immediately got worried and I got online, checked the Purg webcams at that point I knew I was done sleeping and here I am. On my last update, I showed you the current surface map at the time, it was roughly 9 am yesterday when I cut and pasted the map, here it was:

And here it is now 15 hours later…

Nearly unchanged.

Then I read the forecast discussion from the NWS, here it is for your reading pleasure:

“Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Grand Junction CO
239 AM MST Fri Nov 29 2019

.SHORT TERM…(Today through Saturday)
Issued at 208 AM MST Fri Nov 29 2019

The area of low pressure STILL hasn`t moved much from what we saw
yesterday. As it spins off the Pacific Coast, Utah has been
getting walloped as the plume of moisture stays over that area.
This is all due to two pieces of energy rotating around the
trough…since they`re fairly equal in strength…they`re
canceling each other out and thus, not much movement. However, a
strong jet streak will finally round the base of the trough and
get the low pressure and surface cold front moving. QG forcing
also remains the same with high values in all models starting over
the Four Corners region from 12Z this morning, moving directly
over eastern Utah and western Colorado through the day, and
exiting the area towards the evening hours. This large scale
ascent, along with the cold front, will provide plenty of lift and
with ample moisture finally shifting into the area, we`ll have
all the ingredients necessary for some heavier snowfall. All going
warnings/advisories remain in place and it still looks like the
San Juans will be the winners. A few SNOTELs down there are
reporting around a foot of new snow and expect another foot, or
two, after all is said and done. Winds will also be quite gusty
ahead of and along the front so a chance exists for some near
white-out conditions, especially at the higher mountain passes.
Something to be aware of if driving over any passes today.
Speaking of the front, some decent values of CAPE are showing up
and with some mid-level instability evident on the forecast
soundings…a chance certainly exists for a few rumbles of thunder
this afternoon.

For today then, conditions will deteriorate from daybreak with
the best chances for precip from noon onwards. It looks to be a fun
day!”

For the record, they had a few comments at the end about the northern and central mountains being affected after the low moves well east of us that I did not include because it did not pertain to us.

I try to be a positive person and do my best to see the best in everything but after about 10 days of tracking this storm, and watching it dozens of NWS office in the western United States as well as billions and billions of dollars worth of scientific weather models, my natural inherited skepticism and general smart-ass(ticness)-or is it smart-ass(ery)? Anyway, you get it, skepticism comes to the surface and there comes a point when you have to say what else could go wrong here?

Don’t get me wrong, this is not a throw in the towel moment, this is a complete vote of no confidence, so I am literally 50/50 on this storm, I am not confident enough to say it is going to miss us, because if it hits around noon like the NWS is saying it will turn nasty very quickly and those caught trying to go over the passes because it was nice when they left will be in serious danger.

All of that being said I have several scenarios to consider. It could come through midday as they said and snarl traffic everywhere. It could get mostly here and stall again and pound us like what is happening in Utah. Or after all of this time, it could break into two pieces sending a piece into New Mexico and a piece mostly north of us leaving most of the lower and mid-elevations unscathed.

I had secretly hoped it would be nasty out this morning so I would have an excuse to sleep in and not go to the rec center, oh well.

Hopefully, the morning model runs will provide some guidance. The overnight runs look generally the same as they did 24 hours ago, however, they show that it should already be snowing at Purgatory, it is snowing  pretty good at Wolf Creek with wind gusts to 35 mph, so if you had plans to try to make it over there this morning keep that in mind.

Sorry I went off the rails a little in this update, but as the founder of “SnowLovers” I take this very seriously and I know people rely on my information and when I am unable to provide reliable guidance it frustrates me to no end. End of rant.

I will update around 9-9:30 check back then. Good talk…

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