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Forecast Discussion: (Posted early as the next storm arrives tonight.)
With one more foot (and locally up to 3 feet) of snow expected today through Saturday in the southwestern mountains of our state, this post by Matt M. on Twitter caught my eye. Figure 1 is the snowfall so far this season. The statewide snowfall total is at about 115% above normal.
Our new storm is already hitting the mountains but won't do much to the Plains until tonight. This system is powered by a deep, quickly moving, trough in the upper air flow (Figure 2, big red line).
A chance of showers sneaking off the mountains begins this afternoon, but snow showers will more likely start closer to midnight. There is another elevated chance of snow Friday afternoon into the night. This storm slips away Saturday morning (Figure 3).
Through midnight, banded snow (yes, all the models show jet-driven banded snow will occur again) will be confined mainly to the mountains (the HRRR in Figure 4).
For the entire event, the GFS gives us about 1-2 inches of snow with a big band up to Boulder and into Boulder county. More could surprise us (Figure 5). The NAM (in Figure 6) shows the banding as well BUT puts us more under the 'Boulder county' band and gives us more like 3-5 inches (which is a consistent feature of this model from yesterday).
The longer range forecast:
After this snow, we warm to the upper 40'sF and lower 50'sF and have quiet weather through next week.
