It is nice to see things coming together. Snow is falling and already sticking on the roads on Coal Bank, Molas Passes, and Wolf Creek Passes. Red Mountain and Telluride for the moment are too far north for the weaker pre-frontal bands from the south-southwest. That will change.
We should see precipitation increase slightly today and then we may see it actually decrease this afternoon before the “firehose” gets pointed at us tonight.
Here is what that looks like. Follow the 24-hour progression of the jet. This starts at 5 am this morning and ends at 5 am Sunday.
These are upper-level winds that will be transporting moisture overhead. We will see a 140+ mph “Jet Max” between 8 pm tonight until around 3 am Sunday morning. Some of those winds will mix down to the surface and all of the Mountain Passes could see 50-75 mph wind gusts along with very heavy snow!
I want to continue where I left off yesterday and focus on the first part of this storm. Here are the precipitation totals from last night’s Euro and GFS ending Sunday around noon.
Euro
GFS
Normally, I prefer to look at high resolution modeling the day of the storm. I do that because lower and mid-resolution models spread the higher precipitation amounts over a large area making it difficult to distinguish where the heaviest precipitation will fall.
I just got the results from the latest morning run of the high-resolution NAM 3km model. In this case, the opposite is true.
Latest NAM 3km precipitation amounts ending Sunday at 10 am
Here is a zoomed-in version.
Here is the snow forecast.
Again, this is only the first wave. Lower and mid-elevation areas will see snow with the second wave Sunday night and Monday.
As I said it is unusual for a high-resolution model to produce heavier precipitation than a lower-resolution model. Which means one is incorrect. I should get a better idea when the morning runs of the GFS and Euro come out. If they are trending higher with their amounts it will be very encouraging. Overall, I am pleased with everything I am seeing and what is happening outside.
I will be posting several times today so stay tuned. Thanks for following and supporting the page!