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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.
March 3rd WEather<span style="font-size: 10pt;" ></span><span style="font-family: georgia,palatino;" ><span style="font-size: 10pt;" ></span></span>
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Thursday, March 3rd, 2011
Rocky Mountain National Park Weather Forecast
It was another active week of winter weather across the mountains of RMNP.
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Week in Review
Moist Pacific storms, which made landfall along the CA coast, produced a three-day period of snow across the Park on their trek eastward across the Rockies.
Sub-alpine locations over southern, east-central, and western locations of RMNP received 1.0 – 1.25” of new liquid equivalent over the period. While this equated to around a foot of new snow across most locations, over 2 feet of new snow was observed across higher east-facing elevations where enhanced precipitation and wind deposition occurred.
Aiding this deposition were southwesterly wind gusts to 50 mph across higher alpine locations during the snow event. However, those speeds were dwarfed by monstrous 100 mph gusts at mountain-top elevations on Monday 1/28.
Large rooster tails of blowing snow were visually observed streaming off of the Divide from as far away as the high eastern plains. Needless to say, the snow-scape across the higher terrain was dramatically sculptured and redistributed during that time.
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 A graphed summary of the last week's weather weather patterns over RMNP.
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High winds rake the ridges of Mt. Meeker (L) and Longs Peak (R) on Monday, February 28th, 2011.
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The Upcoming Week
Pacific storms will continue to track across the western US states over the next week. For RMNP, two more periods of new snowfall are expected.
The first round of snowfall will occur on Thursday and Friday (3/3-4), with new snow water equivalent forecast around 0.5 inches.
Higher elevation winds during this time will be from the west through northwest, with mountain-wave enhanced speeds on Friday. The coldest temperatures during this storm will occur on Friday into Saturday morning (low teens F near treeline).
The second system will produce more wintry weather on Monday and Tuesday (3/7-8). This system is currently forecast to amplify over central CO, which could produce easterly-upslope enhanced snowfall across eastern sections of the Park.
The current forecast track is producing up to 0.75 inches of new liquid equivalent, but if a more southern track verifies much more precipitation could occur.
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Michael Arnold and Mike Reis kicking steps up the central couloir on Crown Jewel Peak above the Pika Glacier on our 2009 Alaskan Ski Mountaineering Expedition.
Join ClimbingLife Guides for the best backcountry skiing
that RMNP and Alaska have to offer. We still have two openings on this years Alaska Range Ski Expedition- contact Eli at
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
for more information.
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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.
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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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