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Forecast Discussion:
Our last storm came in a couple of waves. Thursday into Friday, Denver saw some significant snow (Figure 1) ranging from just a trace in the northern reaches to over 3 inches in the south (up slope flow on to the Palmer Divide). At the same time, Boulder county received almost nothing (Figure 2). Larmier county only registered a trace in a couple of stations (no figure, too boring).
Friday into Saturday, the blizzard cranked up out on far northeastern Plains. I did a quick-and-dirty analysis of the snowfall depth and places out there there saw 4-7 inches of snow (Figure 3). Winds were very strong as well (hence the blizzard). Trees were felled across Limon, for example, with 70+mph wind gusts.
The low departs and a ridge approaches (Figure 4) warming us up this weekend and allowing winds to die down. We approach 80F again on Monday with the ridge of Figure 4 overhead.
The longer range forecast:
Right on the heels of this ridge is a trough that will blow through on Tuesday dropping temperatures briefly and giving us another windy day (Figure 5). It is too early to know if there will be an elevated fire danger (but one must be careful with conditions as they are).
Our next big storm moves in on Friday into the weekend (Figure 6). The low height center digs much further south than the low height centers of the storms in Figure 4 and 5. It should move through slower and create more instability over the state. As a hint of what might be coming, the 8 day GFS total snowfall map up through next Saturday paints Longmont with 8" of snow and puts a foot to two feet of snow up in the nearby mountains and across southern Wyoming and to the east (Figure 7). We will have to watch this all week to see if it holds in, or fizzles out of, the forecast.
