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Forecast Discussion:
I'm headed out to (snow) camp tonight, so I'll post an update Saturday if needed, otherwise this post will carry through for a couple of days. Since the system is here, I'm posting this early as well.
Lets start with the good news before getting to some more good news (if you like snow and precipitation). The latest U.S. Drought Monitor map is out and the entire nation has improved - greatly. There are small areas of only Severe Drought in WA, OR, NM and TX. Our state is almost drought free.
Let's knock the drought down a bit more... the current system has drizzle along I-25 with moist up slope flow. An approaching short wave trough (one of many) that are rolling over the state will increase precipitation (rain at first) this evening - Figure 4 (rain 3pm - 9pm), Figure 9 (3pm to 12am). If the sun comes out this afternoon (Friday) - we might even see a few thunderstorms.
By Saturday morning, snow is falling over much of the state (Figure 2). Precipitation ends around 6am (Figure 4 and 9 again). The system has cleared out of the state (except for the mountains) by Saturday evening (Figure 3).
The precipitation round up:
The GFS gives us about 1/2 inch of water (total) in this system (up from yesterday) - Figure 5. This same model now gives east side Longmont about 3-4 inches and west side Longmont about 4-5 inches (Figure 6).
The GEM gives us 2.5-3.5 inches of snow (Figure 7).
The NAM gives us 2-3 inches of snow (Figure 8).
The weatherunderground model (Figure 9) only gives us about 1 inch of snow. An expected dry-slot and warmer temperatures seem to blame.
The longer range forecast:
We pop back to the 50's F Sunday and see 60'sF and dry weather for the first half of the week. There are some showery chances mid-week. We approach 70F next weekend- Figure 9.
More later. See you Monday (unless I can, or need to, sneak in an update).
