Andy's Weather

What’s up, weather fam?!

I hope you’ve enjoyed the warmth! It’s been a nice few days along I-25 and across the state. Our next storm has already moved into the high country with mountain snow and valley rain. Yes, we’re talking rain again! I updated all of my socials before this blog came out so as always, follow me there for more timely updates.

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FORECAST HIGHLIGHTS:
~ Cold Front moves north to south across Colorado Wednesday evening
~ Rain transitions to snow overnight along the Urban Corridor. Light accumulations.
~ Heavy snow in the mountains continues now through Thursday evening
~ Active pattern continues through the end of March
~ Cool and ‘wet’ pattern persists statewide

2:30PM Update

Parts of Jefferson and Douglas counties have been added toa winter weather advisory for some decent accumulating snow by Thursday afternoon.

Original post continued:

This has been a pretty good snow year for many in the High Country. As our peak snowpack date approaches, there are more storms expected to close out this month. Let’s look at snowpack numbers and how they compare to other years.

Statewide snowpack sits at about 123% of normal which is great. The Arkansas basin is the only place lacking snow (and has been most of the winter) but sporadic snowstorms have helped keep this basin from dropping too low. Incoming storms will focus on Southern Colorado so I’m expecting a bit of a bump in these values by month’s end.

You’ll notice the Gunnison and San Miguel/Delores/San Juan river basins are really thriving with nearly 150% of the normal snowpack for this date. If we zoom out to look at the rest of the west, it’s a great year for the SW USA.

California is off the charts with 150-250% of normal snowpack as atmospheric rivers and a wildly persistent storm cycle continually impacted them this winter (one is occurring now!). The only areas that are below normal are the Arkansas basin here in Colorado and a few basins across Washington, Idaho and Montana. Overall though…this is a pretty great-looking snowpack.

Let’s talk drought now! With all of this snow, drought has surely been impacted. Below is the drought map from early October of 2022 compared to the most current map.

The biggest change your eye is probably catching is that California has made huge strides in its drought. Colorado has removed a lot of drought but it has gained drought in some areas. An easier way to compare these maps is by looking at the drought change map. Greens mean improvements and yellows mean deepening drought.

Again, damn California, you’ve done goooood. Here in Colorado, we’ll have to watch the San Luis Valley and the SE Plains pretty closely as drought conditions have persisted there much of this winter. Much of the western slope is drought-free and the northern Front Range and northern Plains have made some good improvements this year. It’s worth noting that it’s pretty hard to improve drought conditions in the wintertime because there’s usually such minimal moisture content in our snow.

Now, let’s talk about upcoming storms!

Selfless plug: I’m also happy to be a private meteorologist for hire for any events you have! I’ve helped with wedding forecasts, outdoor event forecasts, ski forecasts, etc. The limits are endless so reach out if you ever need anything! Email me at Andy@andysweather.com

Upcoming Storms

Alright, the storm track continues to stay active for us. Just look at our outlooks for the next two weeks. The image on the left is for March 20-24 and the image on the left is for March 22-28.

Colorado is solidly in the cooler-than-normal AND wetter-than-normal categories for the remainder of this month. During this time of the year, don’t be scared about the cooler-than-normal part. Average highs in Denver are in the mid-50s right now so cooler-than-normal puts us in the 30s and 40s for highs.

We have a storm impacting us currently. Initially, this storm is brining SW winds to the state. This is great for snow production in the San Juans and central mountains and is what causes the Plains to warm so much since SW winds = downsloping for I-25.

Here’s a loot at high temperatures on this Wednesday. Enjoy it because cooler weather is forecast for quite a while coming up.

Denver should eclipse 70º today which is pretty normal. Our average first 70º in the Mile High City is March 9 so we’re doing okay.

The incoming storm has remnant moisture from the atmospheric river that slammed California. Here’s a radar animation for today. It shows rain for the lower elevations at first (hello, it’s going to be near 70º today so it’ll take a while to cool down) but everyone eventually transitions to snow. For the metro areas, that’ll happen while we’re sleeping tonight. I wouldn’t rule out a rumble of thunder or two in some spots. The rain will turn heavier as it begins transition over to snow.

We very well may see drizzle to moderate rain this evening in Denver, Foco and Colorado Springs. Even when we transition to snow along the I-25 corridor, it’ll take a minute for snow to stick and by that time, we won’t have many hours of snowfall to go so totals will be limited.

Here’s a look at winter alerts and forecast snow across the state through Friday morning.

Overall, this won’t be a big storm for much of the I-25 corridor. Down near Trinidad, up to 6-8″ of snow may fall which will clearly lead to some travel issues. On top of this, the mountains will have some tricky travel conditions now through Friday morning.

I’d be happy if Denver woke to 2″ of snow but it’ll likely be an inch or less and mainly only on grass surfaces.

Since we likely will have some liquid precip before the snow, here’s a look at the expected liquid precip from this storm.

A tenth of an inch to a quarter inch is possible for I-25. 1-3″ of liquid is possible for the mountains to add to the snowpack.

Extended Forecast

This blog always gets longer than I expect and that’s on me because I talk a lot haha. But! To conclude this blog, here’s a look at the major forecast models and how much snow they’re spitting out in the next ten days. I’m showing this mainly to illustrate that the rest of March looks active for mountain snow. It also is that time of the year when a storm could track and spin up in a good place to deliver some big snows to Denver and the Front Range so let’s keep an eye on the coming storms.

Now, before I show this – please know that this is not an official forecast but merely a guideline as to what *could* happen. What’s getting me excited is that the San Juans and central mountains have the potential to see 2-4 feet of snow over the next 10 days.

Clearly, the mountains will be favored but the San Juans look like they’ll really see the snow stack up the rest of this month. Also, although there is minimal snow on the Plains and I-25 corridor, it only takes a storm to adjust is positioning a bit to bring us more snow than what is advertised above.

Let’s just hold out for our big spring snowstorm and enjoy the fact that our mountains are continuing to get moisture.

To end, here’s a look at Denver’s forecast for the next 7 days.

Once the cold front rolls through Wednesday evening, it’ll struggle to warm back to normal.

Talk soon!

~Andy

Bonus: Spring snows have decreased by 5-50% over the last 50 years.