Micro Climates - Longmont, Louisville, Broomfield

[WhereTheSidewalkEnds]

Originally Posted by SheridanL

Ahhhh, you all are ruining my childhood memories! I grew up in NW Denver and, remember specifically walking to school everyday from Oct. to March in 4 feet of snow! ( at least, that's what I tell my children!) HAhahaha.
You know, the old, "you think YOU have it bad" speech?!!

I know, it isn't Boulder.....Boulder was worse!! JK!


Maybe the poster is subtle about keeping people out. You know, the other old speech, "it's awful here, don't move here, you will be snowbound until late spring early summer"?!! That one!
Maybe they live in a part of Boulder County that the snow doesn't melt real well? Right?

That's funny! I grew up in Nebraska and I swear the snow would just be feet and feet high all winter. Looking back now, I know we would get a lot, but I was also very short! I tell my son all those same stories too. We really did have to walk a long, long way to the bus stop. I just might be exaggerating when I say it was uphill both ways .

[SheridanL]

Uphill both ways!

[Comedy]

You guys act like I said I have soooo much snow I have to dig myself out. If you want a little more detail. We get snow, and it slowly melts. It looks like its almost gone, but then, gues what?....Its nows again. It never totaly leaves during that time period. There are stretches where its a patch infront of my steps...but then it snows again.

[Katarina Witt]

^^^How long have you been here? That may have happened the past two winters (I know it did in 06-07, not so sure about last yr), but it's unusual.

[Comedy]

The last 2 winters have left snow on my lawn, but I have 20 accumulated winters with snow, in Longmont.

[sunsprit]

Due to the wind "shadows" in the prevailing wind directions ... upslope or downslope ... from the mountains to the West, there are significant little pockets of "microclimes" throughout the Boulder County area. In a given storm front, some areas will consistently get a greater or lesser amount of snowfall/moisture over a small pocket.

For example, we lived just off of Hwy 52 and Cty Road 5, in Weld County, just over the Boulder County Line, an Erie mailing address (although very much out in then undeveloped country) from 1992-1998. This area had substantially less moisture year around than just a few miles away in Longmont, where we worked. It was rare to have much snowfall, and what fell didn't stay on the ground except in shaded areas long after a typical storm; nor did we get much rain compared to Longmont or Boulder. We had many winter days where our roads were pretty clear only to find a lot of snowfall in Longmont.

In comparison, I lived in Boulder 1964-1970. There was a lot more snowfall there than what I saw to the East, and it seemed pretty consistent around the town .... through the South area (NCAR) to the North (Beechcraft), where I had part-time work. I do recall, however, having a fair number of winter days where I was able to ride my motorcycle on mostly dry county roads to Fort Collins to visit friends. After the snowstorms, the roads generally cleared within a few days, except to head West to the mountains. I spent most of those years living on the "hill", with one year a few miles up Boulder Canyon in a cabin. For the most part, the commute to town during that winter wasn't very difficult with my 1964 Ford Custom equipped with snow tires on the rear; I recall having to use tire chains only a few times to get partway to town and then having to decide to remove them (to keep from wearing them out on dry roads) knowing I'd need them again for the trip home or not wanting to deal with the on-off hassles and seeking the portion of the roadway where the snow was still adequate to keep the chains on. I think they didn't do as good a job of snow plowing then, and there wasn't as much traffic driving on the snow and clearing it (by sublimation). I worked as a projectionist at the UMC, and the greater concern for driving home was the "black ice" rather than snowpacked roads later in the evenings.

Friends with houses in SE Boulder seemed to have more snow stay on the ground through the winters than in town.

So, yes, there are microclimes through the Boulder county area where significantly less moisture falls through the year and it's common to see not much ... if any ... snow on the ground through a winter within a day or two after a snowstorm. When I based my plane at Longmont, with a North facing hangar, the fellow who owned the hangars would only plow if there was 4" of snow in front of the hangars ... and his hangar was on the South side. He'd go out and see not much snow in front of his hangar and wouldn't plow, while I had to run my snowblower through a drift to clear a path to the plowed taxiway ... which could be dry pretty quickly after the airport plowed it. In comparison, when I'd earlier based at APA Centennial, my plane was on the ramp (until I finally got a hangar) and it was essential to get out and clear the snow off the plane and out of the tie-down area so I could get to the plowed taxiway just a few feet in front of the plane; otherwise, I'd have a snowed-in plane and have to get a tug to move my plane out of it's spot.