Published Monday 2/15/21 at 3:20 pm
For reasons I will explain, I am going to forecast totals through Thursday morning. While the bulk of the snow in the lower elevations may fall by tomorrow afternoon, there is still a chance that occasional snow showers separated by lulls will continue through Wednesday night in some areas.
The lower and mid-levels in most cases have been under a slight inversion layer with the clouds holding in the cool temperatures. This was while the higher elevations saw some sunshine and blue skies until late morning. As of 1:45 pm, it appears the clouds are just starting to move into the Wolf Creek area and the North Valley south of Purgatory appears to have popped out of the inversion layer.
This storm is not potent, it is actually a bit sad and disorganized and the models are struggling with where to take it. The early portion of the storm should favor the southern portion of the forecast area. The late phase of the storm should favor the northern San Juans. There is less agreement on what happens from late Tuesday until Thursday morning. The storm energy is eventually going to move south of the southern portion of the forecast area, but the track it takes in getting there may leave a northwesterly flow in place in the northern San Juans with a west-southwest flow in place for the southern portions of the forecast area. It also looks like this disorganized storm could leave some leftovers in Utah that will come through on Wednesday. Not your normal set-up.
It is always tough to get fired up for smaller events after a big storm, but if everything comes together we may get more snow than some of the forecasts are showing.
Here are the forecast maps through Thursday morning.
GFS
Euro
NAM high-resolution 3km
WPC high-resolution 2.5km
NDFD high-resolution 2.5km
Based on these model runs here are my forecasts:
Aztec: 2 to 4 inches
Cortez, Mancos, Dolores, Durango, Ignacio, Bayfield, Western Archuleta County, Pagosa Springs: 3 to 5 inches with higher amounts possible in areas at or around 7,000 feet near Durango.
Mid-elevations: 4 to 6 inches, with higher amounts above 7,800 feet.
Mayday, Purgatory, Ouray, Silverton, Wolf Creek: 6 to 10 inches.
Telluride 8 to 12 inches.
At the moment, my biggest concerns are that I am too high for Purgatory, Wolf Creek, and Pagosa, and too low for Cortez, Dolores, and Aztec.
Thanks for the reports, try to give me your event totals rather than additional totals. So for the next few days, I look forward to hearing what you get starting tonight.
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