The weekly
weather forecast for the high country of Rocky Mountain National Park,
Colorado. Researched and written weekly by professional meteorologist
and avid mountaineer, Dan "the weather man" Gottas.
Dec.3 weather
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Thursday, December 3rd,
2009
Rocky
Mountain National Park Weather Forecast
The coldest temperatures of
this fall/winter season
settled over the mountains of RMNP this past week.
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The Week in Review
Strong
ridging along the west coast opened the arctic door,
allowing cold Canadian continental air to surge southward along the
entire
Rocky Mountain Range.
The
amplitude of
this weather pattern was poorly forecast by last week’s
forecast models.
Leading
the surge of this cold air was a deep and active
frontal system, which produced a widespread 3 inch snowfall with
locally higher
amounts close to 6 inches.
While winds were
moderately strong ahead of the
weather system, speeds dropped off with the passage of the front and
have
remained light since.
As a result, most
of the newly accumulated snow has yet to be worked by the wind enough
to
significantly change the pre-storm avalanche risk.
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click
chart to enlarge
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Longs
Peak and Mt. Meeker on the afternoon of Dec. 2nd, as the sun starts to
break through the clouds in Tuesday's storm. Snow
accumulations above 10k in RMNP from this system were in the 1" range
and so avalanche danger has remained unchanged immediately following
this minor storm.
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The Upcoming Week
Significant
winter weather will continue over the next week,
as the atmospheric circulation over the eastern Pacific Ocean undergoes
strong
dynamical changes.
The
west-coast ridging will continue to dramatically amplify
over the next several days.
This will
allow a reinforcing shot of cold air to dive southward over the weekend. Temperatures
will be equally as cold as those
accompanying this week’s system.
An
extended period of light snow will ensue from Sunday
through Tuesday, as the cold airmass settles over the region. The
jet stream position on Monday will be
favorable for increased snowfall intensity.
The
current forecast has the greatest precipitation accumulations over
the southern and central mountains of CO (~1.5 inches of liquid), with
upwards
of 0.5 inches over the RMNP region.
The strongest winds
over the period will develop
ahead of the cold air on Friday through Saturday. During this
time, moderate to strong west
through northwesterly winds will work the recently fallen snow into new
drifts
and slabs. Once the next cold punch and
round of precipitation settles in on late Sat., the winds will
dramatically
drop off, and will remain light through Tue.
Strong
northwesterly flow is currently forecast to once again develop
next Wednesday, as a train of Pacific energy begins to make landfall
along the
west coast and short-wave ridging develops over the inter-mountain west.
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Detailed
7-Day
Forecast
The
link above will take you to the National Weather Service
forecast for the
12,000 foot level near Longs Peak.
These
forecasts are derived from computer-generated numerical forecasts, and
are
updated shortly after 3:30 am, 9:30 am, 3:30 pm, and 9:30 pm local
time.
In the lower right-hand corner of the page, one can view forecasts for
other
locations in the Park by clicking on the desired location in the
terrain map.
Do-It-Yourself
Weather Forecast
Links
The
link above provides a list
of web links to various sites
containing a variety of meteorological data and information.
Collectively,
these resources can be used to monitor and study current weather
conditions, as
well short-term, medium-range, and climate forecasts
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