The weekend weather forecast for the high country of Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado. Researched and written by professional meteorologist and avid mountaineer, Dan "the weather man" Gottas.
Wednesday, January 20th, 2010 Rocky Mountain National Park Weather Forecast
"Yet another dry mid-winter week of weather has passed in the mountains of RMNP."
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The Week in Review
An enhanced area of deep convection over the western and central tropical Pacific Ocean, associated with El-Nino and the Madden Julian Oscillation, has produced a very strong mid-latitude jet stream across the Pacific Basin.
This has produced and guided strong winter storms into the central and southern US coast, where several inches of rain and several feet of snow have already fallen.
To date, the mean southern and western position of the jet has placed the northern Rockies in the doldrums, with each wave of west-coast energy quickly dissipating as it moved over the region. Mid and high level scraps of moisture have produced minimal dustings of new snow in the presence of this weak energy.
During the evolution of this pattern, temperatures near treeline returned to their seasonably chilled levels (teens and low 20s) and the higher-elevation winds regained their typical winter strength (gusts in the 40-50 mph range).
With the abnormally dry weather across northern CO over recent weeks, the snowpack water content is now significantly below climatological levels. Owing to the early season storminess across the Front Range, snow water equivalence is much closer to normal levels in parts of the Indian Peaks and RMNP.
Hope for a more snowy season is not entirely lost though, with some of the wettest months of the year (March – May) approaching for the Front Range. Also, the climate probabilities will increase during these upcoming months for east-side precipitation events associated with a more favorable spring-time El-Nino teleconnection pattern.
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Snow water equivalent chart for central and northern Colorado mountains.
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The Upcoming Week
Storm systems are forecast to become more amplified over the next two weeks. While most of this energy is forecast to remain south of the region, the greater latitudinal extent of these waves should bring at least some minimal amounts of new precipitation to the area.
The first and strongest system will move over on Friday (Jan 22). This will be a decent snow producer for the San Juans, but the northern mountains will remain in the dissipative energy zone during frontal passage.
Strong northwesterly winds are likely to develop on Saturday and Sunday (Jan 23/24) in the post-frontal environment.
These winds combined with cold and moist air will produce orographic snows over the higher terrain.
The wind machine will back off on Mon (Jan 25), followed by another weak wave passing over on Tuesday and Wednesday. More light snow is possible with this system, but only minimal accumulations are currently expected.
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5-day Precipitation Forecast for the Western United States.
Click on image to enlarge
Eli escaping the bad snowpack on the east face of Otis Peak.
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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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