Durango Weather Guy
Where the locals go, because the locals know!
I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving and holiday weekend. We had a great day on Thursday and have had a relaxing weekend. I have gone into full Christmas mode a little early this year. Those who have followed me for a while know that I tend to get a bit superstitious when it comes to winter holidays, my birthday, and snow. I even refer to my outdoor lighting as “snow lights” as if having them up and on early and often will actually draw storms into the forecast area.
Meteorological Winter officially begins on Thursday, December 1st. I like the meteorological system for determining seasons. December, January, and February are winter. March, April, and May are spring. Summer is June, July, and August. Fall is September, October, and November.
Currently, light snow is falling at Telluride, the 550 passes, and Wolf Creek. For the most part, the snow will wrap up this morning. A small to moderate storm is scheduled to hit the area Monday night into Tuesday. Models are in good agreement in timing but vary in accumulations.
Here are the latest model runs showing the total liquid precipitation from the first storm on Monday night and Tuesday. This storm will be a cold (enough) storm and I expect snow-to-liquid ratios of 12 to 1. This means for every 0.10 inch (one-tenth of an inch) of liquid that falls 1.2 inches of snow will fall. So multiply the amount of precipitation you see on the map in your area times 12 to determine how much snow will fall.
The last time I posted precipitation maps I forgot to add the red dot. I quickly found out, based on your emails, people love the red dot. For those of you who are new, the red dot is where Durango (downtown) is located. The precipitation amount listed to the southeast (lower right) of the dot is at DRO. I have another model provider that delineates the two locations for a couple of the models but I usually only use those maps for larger storms.
You can see this should not be a large storm but it will freshen things up at the ski areas and slow down travel a bit over the passes.
This storm will wrap up and exit the area sometime on Tuesday/Tuesday night. Thursday, as I mentioned earlier, is the first day of meteorological winter and right on cue, it appears we will be evolving into a stormy period that could last a few to several days, beginning sometime on Friday. It is too early to pin down specific details but there may be some travel impacts on and off for several days potentially beginning as early as Friday, but certainly next weekend. Stay tuned!
Post courtesy of The Durango Weather Guy
