12/5/21 Sunday 6:30 am
A small system will come through the forecast area, mostly from north to south beginning Monday night. The highest accumulations will fall from Telluride to Red Mountain. 3 to 6 inches of snow is possible there. 2 to 5 inches looks good for Silverton and Rico. Purgatory and Wolf Creek will likely get 2 to 3 inches at most. In the lower and mid-elevations 0 to 2 inches could fall before melting.
The models have gradually been speeding up the next storm. The latest Euro and GFS are bringing the storm in by midday on Thursday with the biggest piece coming late-day Thursday through Friday morning. Then they are showing on and off snow showers Friday afternoon, likely some leftovers. The Canadian is about 12 hours slower with the storm and keeps it here 24-30 hours longer.
Yesterday the Euro jumped on board with some higher totals with its midday run. While that was happening the GFS decided to trim back its totals. Overnight, the Euro Cut its totals back from the midday run, but they are still higher than they had been. The Canadian is all in on this storm. There is still quite a bit of time, meteorologically speaking, until Thursday. I am sure we will see more fluctuations in the models before that.
Here is the latest Canadian model run for snow. It is showing a precipitation pattern that one would associate with strong SW flow. It favors the southern and central portions of the forecast area.
Here is the latest Euro. This run shows a SW and NW flow component.
Here is the previous Euro run. Same pattern, just a lot more of it.
I have good news and bad news with the GFS. The bad news is, as I mentioned earlier, the model has backed off of its earlier totals. If you remember, the point I was trying to make in my earlier posts was that the GFS and Euro were both showing the opposite of their particular biases. The GFS certainly got over that and its bias is on full display in its latest run.
Here is the latest GFS. It will make some people happy. For people south of Durango, not so much…
With the abrupt change in the GFS, I decided to look at the rest of the models that make up its ensemble family.
Here is the (mean) average run from the GFS ensembles.
For now, the ensembles’ mean run shows a better story across the southern portions of the forecast area.
We can welcome the German model into the mix. Here is the liquid-equivalent precipitation forecast for the week.
Here is the latest run from NOAA’s high-resolution blended WPC model for liquid-equivalent precipitation.
Here it was 24 hours ago
My next update will be Monday morning before 9 am. Thanks for following and supporting the site!