Colorado Weather Discussion Thread

[montanaskier]

echo the nuclear winter reports...FKNA NASTY outside. PUKING and WINDY as hell. Heard some thunder too...wicked storm. CAW CAW CAW CAW

[funkendrenchman]

OMG I-70 totally shut down silverthorne to floyd hill!!!!!

Might be closed from Grand Junction to Denver soon.

[pappag]

Mother fucker. Should've had my guts ripped out long before this season started.

[montanaskier]

Might be closed from Grand Junction to Denver soon.

TRUTH.....

[Rossta]

dumping

90100

[karpiel]

OMG I-70 totally shut down silverthorne to floyd hill!!!!!

Last I saw it was vail to genesse

Of course, now cotrip is bogged

[PowTrees]

Man, I'd just ride that NW flow for the next 6 months if I had the chance

oooooh moist NW flow. That sounds better than bacon and pancakes


I have massive amounts of work to do opening weekend which definitely raises the possibility it will snow.

[allornuthin]

WB I-70 is closed from Beaver Brook (Exit 248 - east of Floyd Hill) to Silverthorne.
EB I-70 is closed from East Vail (Exit 180) to Beaver Brook.
Both directions of Berthoud Pass and US 6 Loveland Pass are also closed

[Rontele]

Looks like the fireweather numbers were close (I guess we will be able to tell tomorrow). Joel, what is next weekend/week looking like? I am seeing warm temps through Saturday, which should be good for settling this new snow and building a base. Looks like a lot of SW through Sunday/Monday with a more favorable flow thereafter and unsettled NW through at least the middle of next week?

Thinking that Thanksgiving Eve will not be spent at the office

[garuda]

routt county getting the setup....tower snotel is .1 away from 2 inches swe on the day, with over 4.5 storm (3-day) total.......

edit:

[volklpowdermaniac]

Updates from the field today.

Was at Breck from 9 to 3:00, snowed the entire time, not necessarily nuking, but a persistant smooth flow of snow the whole day.

Did two laps of the peak 8 hike, in the gullys, where wind has blown them in, and there hasn't been a ton of skiier traffic, I had solid thigh deep snow the whole time 20"+ is a very accurate, deeper in some places.... heavier then I expected, and a little bit of dirty snow in there as well...


As soon as I hit i70 at 3:30 things went chaotic, I'm not sure in 5 seasons of skiing out in the corridor, I've seen quite a bizarre situation, almost like cdot wasn't ready for it, it piled on the roads quickly and I rode all snow pack from Silverthorne to Empire exit at least.

Plenty of accidents, and when I got about a mile from 6th East exit on I70, I felt some of the strongest wind gusts that I've ever felt in a car, simply could not keep my Jeep in the lane....

I can't put my finger on why it was so crazy, but I've driven through a lot of snow storms on i70 and this one just seemed like a total cluster fuck of chaos....

Winds in Lakewood and Denver, were still ripping around 900 pm. Wish I knew some more of the science behind all this but ...

/Blog.

[funkendrenchman]

Hmm, got about 1" in town from that 30 minute snowstorm tonight. Ready for the next one.....

[skiingislife]

Fireweather numbers were low if anything around these parts. Easily 25-30" since Saturday in the LVP, Berthoud, and Jones area. Much, much more at Rollins, Buff, Cameron, etc.

[MakersTeleMark]

I almost died tonight. I'm very glad to be alive. That cell was really strong, and I was in 4 low towing a trailer. The wind did it, fuck the totals. I've never dug a semi out before, but she saved my life, and I hers. Thank god for cb radio. It got us down the hill. Her taillights, me on the cb, broadcasting turns at 5 mph with me with no lights in the dark due to an electrical gremlin on the old chevy. Scary to say the least. I did have some blinkers for, of course the 5% vis part.

NUTS.

[montanaskier]

glad you are ok MTM.

[gratzo]

Best 3-6 hours of snow I've ever seen. Cold front dropped south and had strong upper-level support with lots of convection (hence thunder and lightning). 2-3"/hr snowfall common with 30-50mph winds. Explains the 10-20" snow totals this AM.

I was driving over Rabbit Ears at 230 during the event (btw, snow on Steamboat was deep but a bit heavy...no complaints...59" base at summit). I had 30ft visibility...maybe. Was the only time I've ever been scared to drive...and I can't believe they didn't shut that pass until 6pm.

Stuck in Silverthorne for the night, which seems to be a good thing with Breck's 20". Oh well:-)

I might ski Breck this AM...text if you wanna meet up: 814-777-1972 (cell).

Oddly the Fireweather totals weren't too far off for the last few days...30"+ was on the money, though no model can accurately predict the snow band that we got last night.

Storm for Sun>Thurs is on track...similar to the last 4-5 days in some ways. Don't plan Thanksgiving dinner before 6pm because you'll want to be out all day.

JOEL

[mud]

Lots of road closures this morning.
http://cotrip.org/home.htm

edit - Open as of 7:50am
I-70 Westbound Eisenhower/Johnson tunnels-Georgetown (Milemarker 213-213) Closed to Traffic
Accident and snow conditions. Delays at Eisenhower Tunnel due to accident on west side of tunnel. Road closure began November 17th, 2010 at 6:07am

edit - still closed.
US 6 Eastbound / Westbound Loveland Pass (Milemarker 208.66-229.33)
Closed to traffic because of severe weather conditions. Closed at this time. Road closure began November 16th, 2010 at 2:43pm.

edit - Berthoud Open as of 7:47am
US 40 Eastbound / Westbound Berthoud Pass (Milemarker 234-248)
Closed to traffic because of severe weather conditions. Expected to remian closed overnight with high priority to reopen ASAP in the morning. Road closure began November 16th, 2010 at 4:10pm.

[Rontele]

Best 3-6 hours of snow I've ever seen. Cold front dropped south and had strong upper-level support with lots of convection (hence thunder and lightning). 2-3"/hr snowfall common with 30-50mph winds. Explains the 10-20" snow totals this AM.

I was driving over Rabbit Ears at 230 during the event (btw, snow on Steamboat was deep but a bit heavy...no complaints...59" base at summit). I had 30ft visibility...maybe. Was the only time I've ever been scared to drive...and I can't believe they didn't shut that pass until 6pm.

Stuck in Silverthorne for the night, which seems to be a good thing with Breck's 20". Oh well:-)

I might ski Breck this AM...text if you wanna meet up: 814-777-1972 (cell).

Oddly the Fireweather totals weren't too far off for the last few days...30"+ was on the money, though no model can accurately predict the snow band that we got last night.

Storm for Sun>Thurs is on track...similar to the last 4-5 days in some ways. Don't plan Thanksgiving dinner before 6pm because you'll want to be out all day.

JOEL

Cam we geek it out a bit? Can you explain the differences in the models that fireweather uses vs. NOAA? I tend to think that fireweather is better at forecasting more micro areas and wondering if that is due to any specific model they use, etc.

[skiingislife]

FireWx has been pretty spot on within 36hrs recently. Check out the forecast radar reflectivity for 4pm yesterday, which is pretty close to what actually happened.

[Rontele]

Even more impressive was how accurate Fireweather was more than 36 hours out.

[Wild4umlauts]

Care to give some jong-level instructions for how to get to and interpret the Fire Weather data that you guys are using?

[gunit130]

http://radar.srh.noaa.gov/fire/

[Wild4umlauts]

http://radar.srh.noaa.gov/fire/

Yeah - I found that (Google is my friend), but I'm not navigating to the right spot to get the graphs/pics that have been posted in this thread. Also, how to interpret the colors based on the scale units is not really apparent to this weather-jong. TIA

[grskier]

Don't plan Thanksgiving dinner before 6pm because you'll want to be out all day.

JOEL

[mortalim]

Cameron's weather station is giving bad data! 108" Looks like it's about 55"
Still some of the deepest in the state so far.

http://avalanche.state.co.us/obs_stns/stns.php