I Am Back

Five days since my last post and there is still very little agreement on the unsettled weather coming in on Sunday. I enjoy posting, I enjoy writing in general. I like talking about all types of weather. That is how this whole blog began on Facebook 8 years ago. I would try to impress Mrs. Weatherguy with my “vast knowledge of all things weather” until it got to the point that she kindly told me that perhaps it would be better if I found “people who shared my passion” to discuss the topic. I have retained the basics over the years but have tried year after year to apply what I know to numerous micro-climates around La Plata County. For the last couple of years, I have tried to expand into other areas of SW Colorado. I definitely struggle here and it is an ongoing learning process.

So what does this have to do with anything? Great question. I have no answer, but I haven’t written in a while and sometimes I guess it just all comes out. Really, where I am coming from is there has been nothing to talk about all week. But I feel an obligation to keep the content coming for those of you who enjoy reading. So what do I do? The best feedback I get is the number of readers of my updates. Historically over the last year, when there is nothing to talk about, and I force something to talk about one of two things happens, people read less than when a storm is moving in. Or they read less because they are not interested in how or why they are interested in the when and how much. I do realize that there is a small percentage of readers that love the science behind and especially love the reanalysis of storms, usually after they miss us.

January and February this winter has been like a kid having a free pass to Disney World but 9 out 10 days that they show up the power is out and all of the attractions are closed.

Unless this is your first time reading you know that the biggest overall factor affecting weather is the oceans, predominantly the Pacific Ocean. There has been a huge cool down in the eastern Pacific since November. Yellows and oranges are warm blues are cool.

November 2019

February 24th, 2020

3 to 5 degrees cooling from Alaska to Baja California. Yes, it is normal for oceans to seasonally cool. But these are changes in the anomalies–we have gone from 1-4 degrees above average to 1-3 degrees below average in less than 12 weeks. It will be interesting to see if La Nina continues to develop (off the coast of South America) and remember as I have said before, El Nino and La Nina are not huge factors in our winters by themselves, we have had as many bad El Nino winters as we have had good La Nina winters. It is the other factors that enhance or suppress the influences of ENSO.

Sunday And Monday Still Up In The Air

So the weekend is upon us and we still have very poor model consensus and two distinct scenarios for Sunday and Monday.

This year my least favorite meteorological term, by far is split flow. A storm comes onshore, splits apart before it hits us leaving two weaker storms, the northerly component comes in with NW flow in a “clipper” fashion. While the southerly component either comes across in a favorably track and delivers some snow to our area, or, as has been the case many times this year, the storm drives well to our south.

The GFS this morning was extremely bullish on decent precipitation for Sunday/Monday.

GFS precip

GFS snow

Euro precip

So there you are, these discrepancies have existed all week in the models. Hopefully, we will get some valuable moisture. Is it just me or does anyone have a feeling that winter will show in April after the Ski Resorts give up for the year?

I know there are some travelers out there planning to drive on Sunday, I will be posting tomorrow, if you have any special requests, please hit the “click to contact” button below and will address your concerns on tomorrows update. Remember if you ask me questions on Facebook there is a very good chance I will not get to it. Thanks for following.

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