The Official Weather Forecasting Blog

The winds coming over the Continental divide picked up creating a updraft scenario, very rare for colorado to have but actually pulling the moisture over here. So instead of the winds going back down the mountain, they kept going up for whatever reason. I’ll have to research it. Thats why it wasn’t windy at all down here today but way up there, the winds were blowin and cooling the air enough to condense it into moisture.
So why the upper level winds picked up, is still a mystery to Marty at 9News who i talked to today and my neighbor with the NOAA. He says it rare what happened but no model can predict what happened today.

Right now the winds are dying down way up at about 18,000ft and the snow should stop or at most be very very light.

I also took a drive around Brook Forest, Shadow Mountain, Conifer, Burland, Evergreen, and took some snow totals.

Brook Forest- 9″
Shadow Mountain 10.2″
Conifer 8.7″
Evergreen 8.6″
Burland 11″
King’s Valley: 8″

So actually an even storm with a small variation of snow totals. Interesting.

I don’t expect to see more than an additional inch of accumulations.

Please Send your snow totals to weather@coldcoloradan.com

If you can, please send me a picture of a ruler or something to further more verify your observation.
If you don’t have a camera or picture to send me, don’t worry about it. Just give me your general location and how much you got.

Thanks
Ryan

Well, i’m going to be posting on pinecam and also here something i’m really concerned about. This summer, will tell us alot about are future.

Some Questions in Emails i have gotten over the last few weeks…

What is the Jet Stream?
The Jet Stream- Is High Winds at 36000ft. These winds are blowing at 120 to 180 mph.

What Causes wind? What moves air?
Well, this is actually pretty simple terminology. For example, When you open a soda bottle, it goes SPISHHHHHH. That is the air which was compressed inside and at “KEY WORD: at High Pressure” Escaping to the Low pressure outside the bottle. Between that SPISHHHHH is air moving and “natural wind”. Wind not made by a fan, all natural and Keep this in mind!!!

This soda bottle RELATED BIG TIME to the storms we have and all around the earth. Weather is ALL Wind. I’ll Explain Later.

What makes the pressure in a Low Pressure system Low? High Pressure?

This is the most neatest feature of weather. This is the Second Access key to storms.

Ok Lets go off with the basics….. Warm air Rises, Cool Air Sinks.
KEEP that in mind, this is the basic theory of Low’s and High’s

Here’s some pics to help…

So High Pressure Warms the Cold air into Warm Air, Low’s Cools the warm air. And also the basic cooling and condensing which is why Low’s are associated by bad weather and High warm and evaporate all the moisture and keeps it in a vapor form but High’s hold alot of water since it doesn’t condense it and all the moisture falls to the ground.

So how does rising air and falling air having anything to do with the pressure?

Alot Actually. Ok, Cold Air, the air shrinks. At the molecular level, the atoms shrink. Warm air Expands.

So if you were going to put a bottle of air from room temperature into the freezer and seal it up nice and tight, the bottle would crunch in, since the air has shrunk. Now take that bottle into a oven and heat it to 100 degrees from 72 degrees, the bottle would become hard and compresses against the bottle. The air has expanded inside. I hope that makes sense.

So what does that have to do with Low’s and high’s well… Simple actually.

In a Low Pressure system the air rises and Cools and it gets real cold as it gets higher and higher and higher. This cooling will go all the way up to the ozone at 40 to 50 thousand feet where it starts to warm up, and normally, weather stops there. So it get cold and the air shrinks and the pressure decreases where the air is rising. So low Pressure

In A High, the air sinks since it’s cold and the air is coming from 36,000 feet and higher, so it’s cold air but as it sinks, it warms up and expands creating more pressure where the air is sinking. So high Pressure

Ok, now BACK to Wind.

Ok, so how does these systems create wind?

Ok, Think of your Ear and relate it to the atmosphere. Still need help. Just like are ear, it always it working to keep and equal pressure, same with the Atmosphere. The High Pressure is trying to equalize the pressure in a low so the two are the same. So air is rushin fast just like the soda bottle to the area’s of Low Pressure systems. So therefor, moving air which is also know as Wind

Now since the air is always rising, sinking, mixing, never will the two ever equalize and actually make the problem worse.

The High pressure is WARM air and if that WARM air is rushing to Low Pressure systems, WHICH LOWS NEEEEED WARM AIR To SURIVE, the Low only gets stronger. If a Low doesn’t have much warmer air near the surface rising, it dies. See, cold and cold, just sinks, but warm air rising and turning to cold and condensing creates a big storm.

This also HAS A HUGE Relation to the Jet Stream.

So why are the Winds at 36,000ft SO Strong? 150mph?

The Jet Stream (Pay attention) is the boundary to Cold Arctic air and Warm Air from the Equator. So same theory. Cold Air is cold and shrinks therefore Low Pressure. Warm Air expands, therfore much Higher pressure.

Now at 36,000 feet, the pressure in general (think of boiling water. At sea Level, it boils at 220, but up here in Denver or Conifer, it boils at about 210,200 since the pressure is much less up here since there is less air up here.)

36,000 the pressure is very sensitive since there ain’t much way up there. So the hot and cold is what controls the pressure up there where down here it’s mainly the same thing but since there is more air, air can’t expand munch, that why we don’t have 150 mph winds down here.
But up there, there is alot of rooom to expand for warm air. This is also another key thing.

Where the arctiv air and the Warm air collide, the Warm Gulf air from the equator up has a MUCH higher pressure than the cold arctic air. So there for the air IS RUSHING OVER to the Cold, Low Pressure air at 100 to 150 mph, where ever the temperature and pressure difference is the greatest.

NOW!!!! Keep in mind, this is at 36,000 and the jet stream is no Low Pressure storm or anything. The ARCTIC air is a Mass of Cold, shrunk up air and the Warm air is rushing into the arctic air.

Neat Huh?

Here’s a Fun Fact- Why are the winds as fast as winds up at 36,000 feet a 150 mph in a hurricane down at the surface?

Well, the pressure in a Hurricanes eye becomes so LOW, that the air is just RUSHING INTO it just like at 36,000ft. It’s like a whirlpool sucking in all the air around it.

My next Post will be on Why the winds move east to west, and why Low’s spin counter clockwise, and High spin Clockwise.

Until Next Time!

I have fallen in love and marrying my dog on tuesday. Therefore no more weather and no more blog………….

JUST KIDDDING. I ain’t at that age yet or that crazy! Did i get ya?

Ok, It’s a Cold Front moving in and a pretty good disturbance but not a Low Pressure system or aka a storm. Light on/off periods of snow for up here and light, brief snow showers for Denver and maybe an inch. At most 3 or so inches up here. Probably less. The disturbance is good enough to create widespread snowfall over the state. The West of the divide will get the best of some of anywhere of 6 to 12 inches of powder, so skiing this next weekend will be great. Oh ya, this is for Late Tuesday thru Wednesday thru Thursday.

To Be Honest, i really don’t know what happen. The Low didn’t have strong pull up at about 20,000 to 36,000 feet. There for it was being steered by a blind donkey and still is. A low needs support above it. It has to have all the air being sucked into it all the way from the surface to 48,000 feet. This Low only went to 20,000 and above that, it was actually a steady, spread out even pressure. So when the Low came over Colorado, It only created high winds, some clouds and nothing much really else. But the up flow coming off the mountain made the low unstable and it exploded into a full blown storm in Kansas. So it was a Baby Low, a weak Low, when it came over Colorado. I think many meteorlogist got this wrong including me and the NOAA. kind of funny right?

I don’t see any other storms in the forecast, all is calm.

Ok, so the last post i said the possibility of 3 Feet of snow. It was possible and actually for awhile looked probable. But now the Low is So MESSY and unable to form really well, it’s gonna be weak when it hits us but the up flow from the mountains is what is going to turn this storm into A BIG storm after is moves over Colorado. So. aka. not alot of snow but Snow is a guarantee since the wrap around moisture i think will be enough to give us some good snowfall. The Low is also to much situtated up North and won’t drop south enough into that Special SE corner of Colorado as well as not be enough of the Good Gulf moisutre or Counter-Clockwise winds. Next Mondays storm also looks like it may be dropping off the map as well. For now, all is calm in terms of severe weather. I’m not looking at any big storms up ahead nor will the jet stream assist with any of these storms.

History/Global Warming Note

-I’ve been researching Colorado’s snowfall from the 1800s to present. I’ve found some pretty Interesting Data. This winter compared to last is a freak of nature and if we had a winter like this in the 1800s. this wouldn’t come close to the winter we have had. Lets just say, ALOT MORE SNOW fell back then and the Jet Stream is to blame.

-I also have a theory to the latest weather, Global Warming and Lately, Extreme Arctic Downflow pushing the Jet Stream more south tracking more storms towards us than Wyoming.

I’ll keep you guys updated and present my finding at a later date.