10/13 Wednesday 9:30 am
Thanks for all of the reports yesterday, last night, and this morning. There were so many I could not respond to every one of them. If someone is asking me a direct question I try to respond. In some cases when my inbox is backed up I may not be able to respond immediately.
There does seem to be a lot of excitement about winter. I still don’t feel strongly one way or another yet. I follow a lot of people in the industry way smarter than me. I have not yet read a compelling enough case either way for the winter for me to jump on board. As I mentioned a couple of weeks ago, I would not be dismissing this winter by any means.
A smaller, dryer, and colder system will move from north to south down the western slope on Thursday. This system will favor northern portions of the forecast area with 3 to 8 inches of snow. I expect 3 to 5 inches will be more common. Areas around Purgatory and Mayday may see a couple of snow squalls but I do not expect accumulations greater than a heavy dusting.
After Thursday we should see the sun come out and a nice, cool, fall weekend will take over for the entire forecast area. The models are struggling with the progression of another system or two during the first half of next week. I think these systems will stay too far north to affect us. However, I have seen a couple of model runs in the last couple of days showing some snow and rain across northern portions of the forecast area. We have some time to figure all of that out.
After that, the next possibility for another storm looks like it would be after the 24th. At that point, the MJO is forecast to go into phase one. I will talk about the MJO as we get closer to winter. I will refresh the long-time followers and help the new followers understand it. Some of you that have been following me for a while may remember that the MJO in fall and winter means a cool and wet period for us. It usually means conditions are favorable for the development of a winter storm.
My next update will be Thursday morning. Thanks for following and supporting the site!