The Weather for This Week. What's Up?
Hey peeps! I am a super-duper amateur weather enthusiast, and I wanted to give you all an update as to the general outlook on weather over this week. tl;dr down below.
Update 1/6 7:30pm
So as u/touchedbyacat pointed out, some of the models have updated with higher totals for snow depth across the metro area! The HRRR, which is a short-term model, is showing some rather high snow depths for Denver by midday tomorrow- almost four inches around Denver metro. This changed by a whole inch between its 18 zulu run and its 00 zulu run, where just six hours prior it was predicting five inches.
ECMWF is still being very conservative with its predictions topping out at about 2.5" for the greater Denver area and more in the foothills and southwest, and NAM models are showing moderate at about 4 inches around the Denver area.
When there is less agreement between all of the models this late in the game, and variance in the results between runs, it usually signifies uncertainty around how a system is going to coalesce. This is the result of two different systems meeting: there is one that is moving west to east over Utah and Colorado, and another that's coming down from Wyoming.
Ultimately, this leads to uncertainty from my end. I always defer to the experts, as I am still just the super duper amateur weather enthusiast. I'm upping my own stakes to 3" of snow depth around the Denver area, with more for the foothills and in the southwest, as well as more for the Palmer Divide.
Because the Palmer Divide always gets more.
Stay safe!
A Potentially Slick Week, but Definitely Cold
I've been keeping an eye on how this particular system was developing over the course of the last week or so, and we're going to see some slight snow accumulation over the course of Monday night and Tuesday morning.
Snow depth totals around Denver will top out at about one to two inches. Colorado Springs will see more on the foothills side at about three inches. That's nothing too concerning. The concerning thing is the clear and cold weather after that after Tuesday night.
Early Wednesday morning, some areas around Denver are going to see temperatures below ten degrees (maybe even below zero), and most of Denver will be below 20 degrees, and the temperatures won't get above freezing until Friday, with another round of significant lows on Thursday.
There is a chance for ice accumulation in spots with melt off as a result of this, and even ice hidden below snow, so it will be super important to be aware of what the roads are like. Be sure to keep an eye on COTrip to know what's going on with the major streets and throughfares.
It's a week to put up windshield wipers.
Okay, so a chance of ice on the streets. What does the snow for the rest of the week look like?
Cold but sunny days lay ahead as the colder atmospheric temperatures stay in the area, with another precipitous event on Thursday to boost untended snow depth to a maximum of three inches in areas, and a low-to-mid chance of more snow between Friday and Sunday. The models aren't agreed on what's happening this coming weekend for snowfall, so I am not going to speculate too much on that until about Thursday or Friday. The snow totals are not too concerning as much as the colder weather surrounding it.
If you're looking for early indicators, keep an eye on storms developing in the PNW and riding the jet stream down through Idaho and Wyoming.
tl;dr
Snow? Yeah
Much? Eh.
Freeze/ice? Yeah.
Much? Potentially as the week progresses
African or European? Well, I don't know, I--AAAHHH!