John Farley
Supporter
Caught some thundersnow around 7 this evening on the west slope of Wolf Creek Pass, about a mile or so from the top around the 10,000 foot level:
Around 6:15 I noticed on radar that a pretty healthy thunderstorm was moving directly toward Wolf Creek Pass. Since it had been visually evident with other showers and thunderstorms earlier in the day that the p-type was snow down to 9 or 10K feet, I figured that if I drove up into the pass, I would have a good chance of getting some thundersnow. It was a pretty sure bet I could intecept the cell, so if it was still producing lightning I would get thundersnow.
As I drove toward the pass from Wolf Creek, the storm looked pretty heavy with occasional CG bolts visible. By Treasure Falls, where the road begins to climb seriously, some partially melted snow or graupel was mixing in with the rain, with occasional flashes of lightning. I continued driving most of the way to the top until I was in all frozen precipitation - mostly graupel at first, then gradually changing to all snow. Over the course of 15 minutes or so I observed three lightning-thunder sequences, but messed up the video on the first two. But not on the third one, as can be seen in the video above!
This storm was not quite as impressive as the one I witnessed at Ski Santa Fe on March 19 (see previous thread in this section), but this time I had a better camera so the video I did get is better.
Around 6:15 I noticed on radar that a pretty healthy thunderstorm was moving directly toward Wolf Creek Pass. Since it had been visually evident with other showers and thunderstorms earlier in the day that the p-type was snow down to 9 or 10K feet, I figured that if I drove up into the pass, I would have a good chance of getting some thundersnow. It was a pretty sure bet I could intecept the cell, so if it was still producing lightning I would get thundersnow.
As I drove toward the pass from Wolf Creek, the storm looked pretty heavy with occasional CG bolts visible. By Treasure Falls, where the road begins to climb seriously, some partially melted snow or graupel was mixing in with the rain, with occasional flashes of lightning. I continued driving most of the way to the top until I was in all frozen precipitation - mostly graupel at first, then gradually changing to all snow. Over the course of 15 minutes or so I observed three lightning-thunder sequences, but messed up the video on the first two. But not on the third one, as can be seen in the video above!
This storm was not quite as impressive as the one I witnessed at Ski Santa Fe on March 19 (see previous thread in this section), but this time I had a better camera so the video I did get is better.
