Colorado arctic air

[Tim Vasquez]

Driving from east Texas to Denver last night made for a really interesting transection of the arctic air.

(let us don our geek helmets)

(all times CST)

At one point near Trinidad I broke above the air mass and got gusty westerly winds and a temporary spike from 12 to 25 degrees. I have to say that this trip was meteorologically enlightening.

Tim

 

[Darren Addy]

What, no altimeter or barometric pressure reading on that chart? Slacker!


Interesting stuff!

Darren Addy
Kearney, NE

 

[B Ozanne]

Originally posted by Darren Addy
What, no altimeter or barometric pressure reading on that chart? Slacker!


Interesting stuff!

Darren Addy
Kearney, NE

That'd be nice if you wanted a trace of his altitude or atmospheric pressure, but it wouldn't tell you anything about sea level pressure.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

It's occurred to me in the past that if you carried a database of NGS benchmarks you could extract a valid ALSTG. I suppose with mobile data logging and GPS you could have a utility monitor nearby benchmarks and log valid altimeter settings. Though I guess you'd really have to be a data hound to need something like that.

I have doubts that USGS topo contours would be good enough... because if you're one line off that's 0.01", which is marginally significant in a mesoscale event.

No chance of doing SLP though since that requires the previous 12-hour temperature.

Tim

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Anyway before I derail too much, this is the latest forecast for Denver:

TONIGHT...CLOUDY WITH SNOW LIKELY. SNOW ACCUMULATION UP TO 2 INCHES. RECORD LOW TEMPERATURES 5 TO 10 BELOW ZERO. CHANCE OF SNOW 70 PERCENT.

What a treat! I've always been a fan of a little extreme weather... it's not that often that you get good accumulating snowfalls with subzero temperatures. The surface chart shows some sharp baroclinicity in the Denver area already.

Tim

 

[Tyler Allison]

Road conditions are clear from Omaha to Denver. About 1 mile visibility and light drifting snow...but nothing to make real bad driving conditions.

We started out with a 3degrees in Omaha at 8am and then had a low of -2 somewhere in Nebraska this morning and temperature started rising when we crossed the colarado border. Up to 5 now. (didn't know my car could register negative temps...heheheh...)

Adam Ball, Ed Ballou and myself are 30 minutes out from denver!

 

[Morgan Palmer]

Yeah, Tim. You and I don't live far apart. It is amazing that Texas is such a state that you could drive for 12 hours and still be in the state.

On the weather front, the thermo here at my house in Tyler hit 80f yesterday. The weather station at my parents home at Lake Cisco (Eastland Co) hit 88F.

Right now at 5:15pm CT, my mother reports 31 degrees.

57 degrees difference from 24 hours ago!!!

MP

 

[Tim Vasquez]

Originally posted by Morgan Palmer
57 degrees difference from 24 hours ago!!!

For me personally, it's an 80-degree change in a day. It was 78 at my rural property when I left. Now it's minus 2 and dropping.

Tim

 

[Scott A. Kampas]

I noticed a 25 degree temperature difference with the cold front between PNT and another station I forgot about 15 miles away yesterday in north-central Illinois. A couplet from the first warned storm of the day later passed right over the city, incidentally.

 

[Dan Robinson]

Holy cow! This is great. We're going outside after a while to have some fun with this. I don't get to experience subzero temps that often.

 

[Mike Hollingshead]

Eeek it is -27 in Chadron NE right now and it isn't yet midnight. Hmmm not even 11pm there I don't think.

 

[Kurt Silvey]

Originally posted by Tyler Allison
We started out with a 3degrees in Omaha at 8am and then had a low of -2 somewhere in Nebraska this morning and temperature started rising when we crossed the colarado border. Up to 5 now. (didn't know my car could register negative temps...heheheh...)

ROFL! Welcome to Nebraska! If you don't like the weather, just wait a minute, it will change.

I went the other way. Now is St. Louis, MO. it's 12 degrees F, a regular heat wave!

 

[B Ozanne]

How is everyone fairing at the convention? Looks very cold. Denver set a record this mornings at -13F.

 

[Tim Vasquez]

We're doing great... the hotel is warm. I stepped outside the doors at 10:30 am with a thermometer and measured 0F. The snow cover is really doing a number on the insolation.

Tim

 

[Jeff Snyder]

I'm a little surprised that -13 would be record cold for Denver... I coldest temp I've seen this morning has been -36 in Embarrass, MN. Much of wisconsin got into the -20s. I figured that with the elevation, the record lows in Denver for this time of year would be well into the -20s. I suppose w/o being in a valley and getting drainage, perhaps the lowlevel's don't decouple as quickly to allow the temperatures to tank.