10/28/2009-10/29/2009 Winter Storm

[Eian Greene]

As it stands, at 8:00 PM, 3.1 Mi north of Calhan has about 6", 4.2NW Ramah has 11.2" and Simla has 5.5" Visibility today has been Zero since sunrise, forcing me to stay home from college classes... The real winner in this storm is up in Jefferson County. Pinecliff has 43.8" as of 2PM (report from BOU)

 

[Jay McCoy]

Ofcourse nothing near like Denver area. Nothing stuck on the ground but we had about an hour of graupel then changeover to huge snowflakes on the wraparound of the low during the late afternoon. Was good convective precip with GR3 showing 57dbz during the changeover. Even heard a bit of thunder. Very early snowfall for Texas. Ground is still way too warm to hold anything.

I know alot of people around here are getting ready for a big ski season. The ski shops were packed today. Not sure when the resorts open.

 

[Matthew Grzych]

For comparison, Leadville (elevation 10,152ft) received about 2.5" of snow. This is just another example of how upslope events do not affect Lake County despite the fact that it is located east of the Continental Divide.

Eventhough you are east of the Continental Divide, there's the Front Range and Mosquito Range to your east effectively robbing all the upslope moisture. Typically east of the Eisenhower Tunnel does well with east winds, but west of there gets downsloped pretty good. Upslope snow events are very sensitive to terrain. I used to live in Pine Junction, which is west of Conifer. Conifer sits on a local ridge, and then as you go west, you lose elevation into Pine Junction and Bailey. Conifer always gets more snow then points further west.

Speaking of being terrain sensitive... here in Greeley we only got 10" to 12" from this event. North winds killed us as downsloping off of the Cheyenne Ridge dried out the lower levels. My blog post

 

[Patrick Martin]

Some images from the Denver area during the 2 day snow event.

Trees with a coating of wet snow early morning Wednesday 10/28.

Thursday morning 10/29

My back deck/yard Thursday morning 10/29

The morning drive Thursday 10/29. Just in case you were not aware of road conditions, CDOT has signs to help you out.

There was some melting but the heavy snow blocked some storm drains such as at this location at DTC Blvd and I-225 Thursday afternoon 10/29.

 

[Joel Wright]

Hard to believe that many of the areas that received up to 2 feet of snow will be pushing 80 degrees today. Amazing!