Tag: atmospheric river Colorado

Friday Morning Update: Slight Concerns With Higher Totals

On By durangoweatherguy

11/13/26 Friday 4:30 am

I nailed my sleep last night, so I’m well rested and thinking more clearly this morning than yesterday.

Yesterday I talked about the RRFS model. I said that model has everything I need in its core to help me produce better forecasts in our highly varied terrain.

As far as I can see, past model runs from the RRFS were, and still are, producing more precipitation from the Saturday storm than the other models.

I am also seeing higher snow levels at the start of the storm than the other models. The RRFS shows rain up to the 9,500 ft level until about 8 am tomorrow.

I know what you’re thinking, so let me say that, at the moment, I see no evidence of widespread flooding. However, there is one area I am concerned about: Los Pinos below Vallecito. With the active (apparent) release still taking place, I hope there is no complacency going into tomorrow’s underforecasted storm.

As I said when we were dealing with the flooding, I am not a hydro guy; the residents along the rivers have helped better educate me on local nuances.

But here is the RRFS total liquid precipitation forecast accumulation by 8 am tomorrow.

Zoomed in

If you look at the NE portion of La Plata County, you can see bullseyes up to an inch above Vallecito in roughly 4-6 hours. If that is manageable, that is great. But I hope the right people aren’t counting on less precipitation, as most models have been showing all week. But as I said earlier, the other models seem to be increasing their totals run by run to catch up with the RRFS.

There is a bullseye in the La Plata as well, which should not affect the Animas, but it may raise the levels of its tributaries. However, the snow level will lower earlier over the La Platas than the NE part of the county.

So I am not sending out a panic call here, but I would say those living along these creeks should continue to be vigilant.

This is a perfect place for me to stop, as I am running a little behind schedule on the home front. My afternoon update will be out before 2 pm.

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Sunday Afternoon Concerns and Flood Data

On By durangoweatherguy

11/1/26 Sunday 2:30 pm

I will cover the new river forecasts in a moment. If I didn’t post your hydrograph, nothing has changed since their earlier update (according to them)…

Overview

I am glad the River People updated, but still concerned. For example, they increased the forecast peak and CFS for Animas at Cedar Hill, but left the Animas at Durango unchanged (both locations).

Raising Cedar Hill straight into Flood Stage at 11.24 ft and 9,603 cfs while leaving Durango idling barely in Action Stage makes zero physical sense to me. Cedar Hill cannot magically conjure 9,600 cfs out of thin air unless the bulk of that volume passes straight through the Durango gauges first. Especially with the Junction Creek diversion this afternoon.

Also, I am concerned because the models continue to show the snow levels dropping before midnight, which would slow runoff. I hope it happens, but show of hands, long-term followers: how many times have we gone to bed seeing the models bring the cold front through in the middle of the night? Then we wake up look at the surface maps, and it’s still in western Utah.  A lo of timest is the answer.

It’s still raining everywhere up to about 11,500. If you look at the Day Lodge webcam at Wolf Creek, look to the right, look below the deck, and check out the runoff.

If you have been looking at the webcams trying to decide what is rain and what is snow, don’t look at the color; look at the speed. Rain falls faster than snow.

All of this makes me question the aggressive NWS snowfall forecast for Purgatory.  Now, it should be different for Telluride because when that front comes through, the flow will shift to the Northwest. So I could make a case for good snow there tomorrow.

Also, Wolf Creek is weird, it is such a wall it likes to suck every ounce of Southwest flow for hours/days after the moisture has left our area. Same situation; I could see Wolf Creek getting decent snow tomorrow.

Latest Flood Data: Again, if you are not on here, your situation is (supposedly) unchanged.

 

 

 

 

If something changes this evening and I am awake, I will post; otherwise, I will be up early.

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Sunday Mid Morning Update: Second Batch And A Couple Scary Model Runs

On By durangoweatherguy

11/1/26  Sunday 9 am

These are all going to change. I just don’t know how often the river people will update today. I can’t imagine that, in the midst of historic flooding, they’d wait another 12 hours of the event’s heaviest rain to do another update.

Dolores: They didn’t update the data for lower or Rico locations. I did not leave you out intentionally.

 

 

 

These were the most accurate models with the last flood; These are their forecast totals from 5 am this morning to last drop and flake.

Canadian

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Sunday Morning Update

On By durangoweatherguy

 

11/1/26 Saturday

Current Radar

The heaviest rains are yet to come. Right now, they are aimed straight at us. I am not sure if that convective banding will make it up here; if it does, we could get some strong thunderstorms this afternoon

Nothing like watching it rain on the Purgatory, Wolf Creek, and Telluride webcams and snow stakes.

Here are the latest hydrographs. This first batch will be for the most critical locations (Above Flood Stage). So if you don’t see the location you are looking for, it will be in the next batch.

Pagosa got worse, again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Sunday Early Morning Update

On By durangoweatherguy

11/1/26 Sunday 3:30 am

I am waiting for the river people to update before I post the hydrographs. They updated at 10 pm last night with big changes. Things are looking much worse.

Animas at Durango (both sites) are forecast to be over action stage; I see nothing that will stop them from going higher.

Pagosa Springs is going to be devastated. The last flood 10 days ago hit 15.2 feet; it is now forecast to peak at 19.7 feet.

Mancos River is forecast to hit historic levels. La Plata River at Hesperus is forecast to hit historic levels. Dolores at Rico is forecast to peak within inches of where it was 10 days ago.

Animas at Silverton is forecast to equal the peak from 10 days ago. Animas at  Farmington is already forecast to hit within 7 inches of  10 days ago.

Rain started about 6 hours earlier than the models had forecast. So the River models were not only using lagging data last night; they were using incorrect data. As I said, when the new forecasts come out, I will post full details. I just wanted to give everyone an overview to read when they woke up.

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Saturday Afternoon-Wrap Up

On By durangoweatherguy

10/31/26 Saturday 2:00 pm

I have been waiting and hoping that the river people update their forecasts. But it does not look like that is going to happen. I hope they have more updates tomorrow than 1. That would be irresponsible given the situation, especially Pagosa, forecast to hit 4 1/2 feet above “Major Flooding Stage” with 11,432 cfs (flood stage is 4476 cfs)

About 40 minutes after my preliminary update on the areas forecast to exceed prior flood levels, NWS GJT put out flood warnings for affected areas. Nice to see them changing their tune (again).

I have a couple of models to share: one I have used before, the other- not before current pre-storm prep.

First, the NBM: I have used it a lot over the last few weeks. It is a high-resolution model that smooths low-resolution multi-model solutions. The good about that is it takes multiple model runs from “model members”.– Got very close to the rabbit hole there. Why do they call it that? Do rabbits live in a hole?- See, I told you.

I will save all of that for a boring weather post; it’s a good idea to talk about the differences between the weather models.

Been awake since 1 am, not an excuse-anyway.

Here is the NBM

These totals are higher than yesterday’s, before last night’s/overnight’s precipitation. It does a good job with elevation (un)smoothing.

I have not mentioned this before, but look at the bottom right of the precip map. See that “Max 6.78″? You can match that with the colors; in this case, the three potential areas that the models predict that 6.78” of liquid equivalent precipitation could fall are La Platas, Wolf Creek, or the Southeast San Juans (south of Wolf Creek).

Now another new one in the lineup. It’s an experimental NOAA model ready to officially replace the NAM3k next year.

It is RRFS  (Rapid Refresh Forecast System); NOAA calls it “next generation”. I can’t confirm its accuracy yet; I haven’t spent enough time with it, and I’m anxious to see how it verifies. Right now, it could be my favorite model, especially this winter.

It is a convection-allowing model suite built on an FV3 dynamical core… I did it again.

Here it is, bottom line: my first reaction was that the model handles elevation in our area the way it really is. You may have heard me say in the past, “this model run is impressive, but there is absolutely no way this could possibly happen”. This model is exactly the opposite.

Look up by Purgatory: It actually registers the lower elevation at Purgatory at 550 versus the peaks on either side. Same thing with Animas heading up to Silverton.

My biggest concerns are the bullseyes where we don’t need them-Above Vallecito, Wolf Creek, and the La Platas.

Very excited about turning the clocks back; that means I get model data an hour earlier! (nerd)

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Saturday Morning Update: New Flood Forecasts

On By durangoweatherguy

10/31/26 Saturday 9:00 am

I will post all of the details, but I wanted to get the word out ASAP.

The following locations are now forecast to exceed the last event flow and height levels.

San Juan at Pagosa Springs; La Plata River at Hesperus; La Plata River at Stateline; La Plata River at Farmington; Mancos River at Mancos; Animas at Cedar Hill.

It will take me a while to load the hydrographs; I will be back as soon as I can get them loaded up. This is what I feared…

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Saturday Overnight Update:

On By durangoweatherguy

10/31/26 Saturday 3:00 am

Concerns:

  • Models underforecasted precipitation totals last night and after midnight. Many areas got well over an inch. I have seen totals as high as 1.85″ already. The atmosphere is saturated, and so are our soils. This was supposed to be the weak wave; the heavy stuff should arrive tomorrow.
  • Overnight models have either stayed the same or are showing higher precipitation totals than yesterday.
  • NWS is still convinced snow levels will mitigate runoff and downstream danger. Looking at the webcams at Purg and Wolf Creek. and an underwhelming amount of snow has accumulated. Current temp at Wolf Creek is 33.  Models indicated overnight lows to be colder at these elevations than what is verifying.
  • As I said yesterday, snow levels will rise and stay high for most of this event, even if the cold front does not stall (like it usually does). Current indications show snow levels dropping below 10,000 feet late Sunday night (after the bulk of the precipitation has fallen).
  • The “River People” (CBRFC) have not updated their forecasts in nearly 24 hours- frustrating; hopefully they will be more on top of this tomorrow.
  • I will be posting often today; stay tuned, hopefully for better news, but I can’t find any right now.

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Friday Afternoon

On By durangoweatherguy

10/30/26 Friday 1:30 pm

Updates:

Not a big enough change to talk about with the precipitation models. Except for the areas I can’t monitor: Junction, Lightner, Tripp Creek, Hermosa.  Hi-res models pinpoint an area in the La Platas that would feed all of those creeks.

The river people (CBRFC) don’t update a lot. I think we may see some changes in their modeling after the first portion of the storm arrives tonight through tomorrow afternoon.

Changes can happen very quickly, and they may not reflect reality until 12 hours or less before we reach peak. I will try to balance peak forecasts versus reality as we go. Not saying that in an “I am smarter than them tone. Not even close. I am saying their forecasts seem to lag the data, which is common in this field.

Forecasts are for 0.30 to 1.1 inches of liquid equivalent by late tomorrow afternoon. Quite a spread, but in 80% of precipitation events over the last few months, most locations received higher totals than forecast guidance. The heavier stuff arrives Sunday morning.

Snow levels are changing very little. I will spend more time on this subject as we go. As I mentioned this morning, and this is important: Snow levels tonight and early Saturday morning will be lower than they will be throughout the day Sunday. I just don’t want people to get their hopes up with the lower snow levels tomorrow and think that will be the level for the entire event.

Telluride will likely see snow levels dropping Sunday night much earlier than the SW San Juans and mid-elevation areas.

Flooding Potential:

San Juan River at Pagosa: Now forecast to exceed flood stage by Monday! Florida at Bondad is already forecast to hit 2 inches within last event peak.

The following locations are already forecast to be at the action stage (likely above) on Monday: Mancos River at Mancos; La Plata River at Hesperus; La Plata River at the state line; La Plata River at Farmington; Animas at Bondad; Animas River at Cedar Hill; Animas River at Farmington; Los Pinos near Vallecito; Navajo River at Chromo.

I will be back in the morning.

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Friday Morning Update: Early Flood Information And Model Update

On By durangoweatherguy

10/30/26 Friday 5:00 am

Changes:

  • Flood Watch Issued
  • Models continue to speed up the onset of the first batch of precipitation, now expected to arrive tonight and depart Saturday afternoon-Dry for trick-or-treating? Maybe…
  • Models are increasing their forecast for the first batch of precipitation, now expecting 0.50″-0.80″ by Saturday afternoon.
  • The main system is expected to linger until Monday afternoon in the lower and mid-elevations and until Monday night in the higher elevations.
  • Snow levels will be slightly lower tonight and tomorrow than on Sunday, so in some cases, rain on snow, which is not good.
  • Snow levels are finally forecast to drop late Sunday into Monday morning (unless the cold front stalls, which it usually does)

Here is the Excessive Rain Outlook (ERO) from the Weather Prediction Center for Sunday Morning through Monday morning: We don’t often see such a high risk.

Here is a list of the rivers and locations already forecast to be at or above action stage by (or before) Monday; this list will likely get much longer.

San Juan River at Pagosa, Mancos River at Mancos, La Plata River at Hesperus, La Plata River at State line, La Plata River at Farmington, Animas River at Cedar Hill, Animas River at Farmington, Los Pinos near Vallecito, Navajo at Chromo.

I am not going to load the hydrographs yet because it’s all going to change…

Models: From low to high

European

German

WPC: If you look real close, there is a 5.33″ bullseye right over La Platas

UKMET

GFS AI

Canadian

I will be back around 1 pm. Looks like another busy weekend!

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