10/19/26 Monday 12:30 pm
First off, a couple of things to discuss/remind you all about.
Until I have time to teach/refresh those who struggle to read the precipitation maps, I’ll keep giving a brief forecast overview at the start of every update.
As a reminder to long-time followers, and to let you new folks know, I handle winter snow forecasts much differently than rain events. I crop and enlarge the forecast area on the maps, and I label Durango, Telluride, and Wolf Creek Pass.
Then I post my forecast amounts. I group the areas by how much snow I forecast. To view the areas, click Precipitation Reports at the top of the main page. Then click Subdivision/Area, and the drop-down menu will show all the areas I will be covering.
Overview
A slight chance of showers developing this afternoon, evening, and overnight into Tuesday morning. The showers will not be widespread, and anything reaching the ground should be light compared to what’s on the way.
The latest model runs have removed light showers from Tuesday afternoon’s forecast. On Wednesday afternoon, showers should start building in from west to east. Showers should get heavier overnight into Thursday morning. Moderate to heavy rain should fall all day and night Thursday before diminishing by Friday morning. On Saturday, some models show showers redeveloping from residual moisture in the area, as well as small perturbations that broke off the main storm system. All in all, 2 to 5 inches of rain will fall across the forecast area this week.
At this point, snow may be above treeline and not affect the passes. I won’t know until the low starts moving onshore.
This is how it looks now if nothing changes. Which would be unusual; therefore, while I am fairly confident in the accumulations, I am not at all confident in the Wednesday through Friday timing of the system’s start and stop.
Models continue to be very consistent with their event totals.
European
NBM (NOAA blended model)
This morning’s run
NBM brand new run (it was released while I was preparing this update)
German
Canadian
I will be back early tomorrow!