Tuesday Morning Update

2/21/23 Tuesday 8 am

Today will be the warm before the storm across much of the forecast area. This year the Winter Storm Severity Index, or WSSI, was introduced. I usually don’t use the product but since the forecast shows the WSSI maxing out with this storm, what a perfect time to introduce it to followers.

Similar to hurricane forecasts, these indexes are developed to be pretty simple to interpret so I won’t spend a lot of time explaining them.

The following parameters are used to determine the potential severity of the winter storm: Snow Amount; Snow Load; Ice Accumulation; Flash Freeze; Blowing Snow; Ground Blizzard Conditions. They then calculate an Overall Impact Score. Here are the scores with descriptions.

Here is the map for our area, as you can see 90% of the forecast area is in Major or Extreme Impacts.

I took the liberty of putting white dots on the passes. Wolf Creek is on the far right. Lizard Head is on the top left-center. Coal Bank, Molas, and Red Mountain are in the top middle.

Winter Storm Warnings go into effect at 5 pm this evening.

Here are the latest model runs. While I am expecting additional snow on Thursday and Friday, the heaviest snow will fall throughout the day and night Wednesday. Therefore, unlike the last several days. Here are the snow totals through Thursday morning at 11 am.

European–It is still on the lower side of the models