Colorado Weather Discussion Thread

[The SnowShow]

That is helpful SnowShow, thank you. Looks like a rock scramble at the top, if we get that high. May end up being more recon - snow and weather may conspire against us! Thx

Let us know how it goes!

[tang]

Semi success. Started before 5. Basically Stevens and grizzly gulch junction (can’t drive beyond that now). 2 mile, 1000’ skin to bottom of tuning forks. (Emperor gulch also looked good and filled in - maybe snow through the usual rock choke, hard to see.) Then almost 3000’ booter to summit ridge where snow stops (short of summit). Froze overnight putting a crust on top - good for avy... but storm rolled in and the crust never softened. So 3k of breakable crust descent! Not pretty turns. But was on our list so good to get it in. Plenty of coverage on both tuning forks and emperor. And like a foot of soft cohensionless (non slabby) snow... under that damn 1-2” crust. Another pair was out there plus saw recent tracks in emperor. Someone skinned all of tuning forks recently - impressive, but was an invisible ice track we kept hitting on the down.
Let’s see what this next storm does

[The SnowShow]

^ damn, good job dealing with the breakable crust.

[tang]

Nothing happens without pics, so here's some intel...
Tuning forks

Emperor - again, looks like enough snow through the usual rock choke; the alternate is to climb/ski lookers right of that choke (you can't see that chute from this angle)

Grizzly Couloir - uh, cornice much?

We skied - the top was pretty good, then dinner plates started breaking and chasing us down!

[The SnowShow]

Speaking of cornices, Wild Child’s cornice at Loveland was impressive Friday.

[tang]

^^^eek

[The SnowShow]

Surprises me every season that LL Patrol lets it build up that much. There were morons skiing/traversing directly under it the other day.

[Rideski]

Anyone been on Kenosha lately? Wanted to go for an easy dry hike with the gf Wednesday. Not looking good at the moment.

[glademaster]

What month is it, again? You're asking about dry hiking, then talking about driving up to 10,000 feet to start your hike? Does not compute.

[shera]

A snowy day, a gift. Feels like we didn't have enough of them this season.

[The SnowShow]

Anyone been on Kenosha lately? Wanted to go for an easy dry hike with the gf Wednesday. Not looking good at the moment.

Flatirons are prime right now.

[shera]

Me and Whip and his buddy from Winter Park will be skiing ABasin on Thursday, looks like a nice day. Come one, come all!

[bamboocoreONLY]

Full on mid winter type pow turns yesterday in Breck. Glad this consistent moisture pattern is hanging around, really helping to delay the faster melt of our low snowpack. That, and we headed over to Edwards in the afternoon for some great tacky dirt! Gotta love it.

[tang]

^^^ was thinking of hitting either silver or cristo early tmrw (thurs) and so was looking at breck snow... was their 6" report yesterday accurate? and theyre reporting another 2" this AM
thx

[slcdawg]

110's skied really well yesterday evening, felt like 8-10". Hoping for a few more after work tours. Anyone skied Jones/Butler recently? Can you skin from the parking lot or is the road mostly dirt?

[bamboocoreONLY]

^^^ was thinking of hitting either silver or cristo early tmrw (thurs) and so was looking at breck snow... was their 6" report yesterday accurate? and theyre reporting another 2" this AM
thx

I’d say so. Most all of my turns up high were bottomless. Only hit crust down low on moguls. I’d bet it stays good til tomorrow for ya.

[SterlingSpikeDancer]

Iron horse lift line was great, lap after lap, yesterday.

Sent from my SM-G975U using Tapatalk

[Danno]

This is a great article, WaPo and others need to keep printing stuff like this: https://www.washingtonpost.com/weath...ason-245-days/ (copied here because paywall)

From September to May, it keeps snowing in Denver

A seemingly endless snow season has gripped the Mile High City, where flakes first flew in early September and fell again late Monday into Tuesday. A coating to a few inches of snow covered much of the Denver region Tuesday morning.

The snow accumulated mostly on grassy areas and caused few problems, but it extended one of Denver’s longest snow seasons on record, spanning 245 days.

The first flakes of the season fell in the city on Sept. 8, when an inch fell just one day after high temperatures in the 90s. It was the first measurable September snow since 1994.

While small amounts of snow fell in October (four inches), November (five inches), December (seven inches) and January (3.1 inches), it wasn’t until February that Denver really started to get dumped on.

“Seems like in February things seemed to turn around,” said Jim Kalina, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Boulder, Colo. “February [with 13.5 inches of snow], March [34 inches] and April [12.6 inches] were all above normal.”


Tuesday’s snow came as temperatures plunged to near-freezing in the morning and were predicted to reach the low 40s in the afternoon, nearly 30 degrees colder than average.


The cold conditions in the Rockies is part of an unusual May weather pattern that has produced below-normal temperatures from Montana to northern Florida.

By itself, snow in May in Denver isn’t terribly out of the ordinary. Measurable snow has fallen on May 10 or later there in seven of the past 15 years, tweeted Chris Bianchi, a meteorologist based in Denver.

But both the longevity of the season and the amount of snow that has fallen this time have been unusual.

The May snow comes after the city’s second-snowiest March on record, when 34 inches fell. Denver has recorded 80.2 inches since September, which ranks among its top 20 snowiest seasons on record.


Including those first flakes in September, snow has fallen in the city for nine straight months.

2021 is off to an unusually white and wet start. Through Monday, Bianchi tweeted that Denver had received more total precipitation, accounting for both melted snow and rain, than Chicago, San Francisco and Detroit.

“This is remarkable — since Denver is just shy of desert status,” he tweeted.


Adding in the rain and snow Monday night into Tuesday, Denver’s 2021 precipitation has leaped to more than eight inches, nearly double its average year-to-date total.

Snowfall totals through Tuesday morning were even greater in the foothills west of Denver and in the high terrain west of Boulder, where up to 10 to 13 inches were reported and winter storm warnings were in effect. Estes Park, Colo., reported 8.8 inches. To the north, Cheyenne, Wyo., also under a winter storm warning, reported six to eight inches.


While many areas around Denver reported measurable snow, only a trace was reported at Denver International Airport, where the snow didn’t stick. This means that while Denver’s snow season reached 245 days on Tuesday, it won’t enter the record book that way. If the airport had posted even 0.1 inches, it would have officially marked Denver’s second-longest snow season on record, only trailing 258 days in 1974-1975. But with the last measurable snow occurring April 21 (2.6 inches), the snow season officially stands at 225 days long, which would tie for 10th-longest on record.

ADVERTISING


While unlikely, Denver’s snow season may not be over. The city has seen measurable snowfall as late as June twice. In 1951, 0.3 inches fell on June 2, and, in 1953, 0.5 inches fell on June 5.

In the meantime, mild weather is returning to the city after today’s winterlike chill.

“It will warm up,” Kalina said. “Tomorrow we’ll be into the low 60s. By Thursday, we’ll be back into the 70s. Then it will be warm all the way out through early next week.”

[grskier]

Meanwhile, your reservoirs will struggle this year.

[Danno]

Yeah, lots of water in Denver, not much elsewhere in the state.

[ColMan]

Yeah, lots of water in Denver, not much elsewhere in the state.

One bright spot is that they may not need to pull as much water out of Dillon res through the Roberts Tunnel this summer.

[hawkgt]

^^^^ res level info

https://www.denverwater.org/your-wat...servoir-levels

[Elkhound Odin]

Once the snow melts those reservoirs will be full. Unlimited yard watering, woohoo!

[tang]

FYI, silver skied real well yesterday (5/13). Had been cold overnight. Started descent at 10, pretty well timed but could’ve gone earlier. Top 1/3 great - still snow from tues plus some blown in = fresh tracks. Middle 1/3 was heavy, and slaloming refrozen roller balls, bottom 1/3 actually fun slushy turns but nothing wet sliding or roller balling... yet. A few groups were out, maybe 10 total through there. Gonna be warmer today and next few days though.

[Danno]

FYI, silver skied real well yesterday (5/13). Had been cold overnight. Started descent at 10, pretty well timed but could’ve gone earlier. Top 1/3 great - still snow from tues plus some blown in = fresh tracks. Middle 1/3 was heavy, and slaloming refrozen roller balls, bottom 1/3 actually fun slushy turns but nothing wet sliding or roller balling... yet. A few groups were out, maybe 10 total through there. Gonna be warmer today and next few days though.

How many people missed the exit?

Every time I have skied Silver, there have been groups ahead of me (either left the TH before me or passed me on the climb) that were not back to their cars when I got back to the TH. I'd wager at least 1/3 and probably more miss the exit. They get the exit to the aqueduct, but miss the right turn off the aqueduct.