Is it ever going to snow again? (Colorado Springs, Boulder: suite, estate)

[Skifreak189]

Depends on your location. Irwin, CO (Just outside Crested Butte) recorded 18 inches from this storm Irwin Colorado Winter Albeit it is the snowiest spot in the state with Wolf Creek Pass coming in a close 2nd. Remember that either the mountains get the snow or the Front Range gets it. Very seldom do both get hammered at the same time, due to the upslope wind direction http://opensnow.com/about/snowuniversity.

[Idunn]

Smoke and potentially open flames will be visible for an extended period."

"For areas where fire line construction and fire line improvement occurred along trails, they will ensure that "low stumping", cutting stumps as low to the ground as possible, and limbing of trees, is accomplished to meet those standards." [1]


Couple notes here. One is that the National Park Service is starting back fires in Rocky Mountain National Park, tampering with an existing one, and butchering the landscape, including trees. None of that is theoretically allowed in an officially designated wilderness area, which 95% of RMNP is. As stated, their priorities are different, but this is how these "stewards" are dealing with your national park.

Per the Fern Lake Fire, it is obviously serious. Not all that large in acreage burned relative to larger fires, but it is in close proximity to the town of Estes Park. More to the point, that there is any fire there at all this time of year speaks volumes. Estes Park might have received a few flakes of snow in this last storm, but remains entirely dry in town. Higher in the park, where this fire is, the report is of four to six inches of snow having fallen, with perhaps another one to two inches to come soon. But the fire still persists, and one apparently should not be surprised to continue seeing smoke and perhaps flames.

Terming this area a tinderbox might be an overstatement, and an understatement if this "winter" remains more or less as is until spring.

This would be a perfect opportunity for all employees of RMNP to educate the public in what is really going on with our environment and forests. But they seem more adept with equivocation and chainsaws.

1) 'Fern Lake News Release,' InciWeb
http://www.inciweb.org/incident/article/3294/18338/

[jazzlover]

I just got back from a trip across a goodly chunk of southern Colorado and northern New Mexico, some of it in the height of this "storm." Snowfall was pathetic--patchy snow of no more than a few inches. The snow was extremely dry (not atypical for December), so moisture will be measured in hundredths of inches, not tenths. Prior to the snow, soil moisture levels all the way up to 10,000 feet are the lowest that I've seen in December in my entire life--nearly nil soil moisture in many locations. Worse yet, the cold weather following this nearly non-existent snowfall will only serve to drive the frost level deeper into the bare ground, rendering it incapable of absorbing much moisture from what snow falls from now until spring. The snow that does accumulate will thus be more susceptible to sublimating its water content to the atmosphere during the winter, rather than soaking into the ground. In short, this storm packed a sequence and combination of weather more likely to aggravate the dry conditions, rather than do anything to moderate them.

As DoubleH noted, the latest drought forecast from the Drought Prediction Center is dismal for the remainder of the winter for nearly all of the Great Plains and Rocky Mountain West, save the northernmost parts of the US Rockies and Great Plains. None of the water experts that I speak with are talking anymore about anything other than a dismal water year next year for the central and southern Rockies, the only speculation is over just how bad it will be. Words like "devastating" and "unprecedented" are now becoming common lexicon.

An official of one domestic water providing utility that I know about had already told me that they will likely, for the first time in decades, fail the federal water quality standards this winter for dissolved minerals (salts, alkali, etc.) in their treated water because the lack of streamflow has so concentrated those minerals in their raw water supply that their treatment plant can no longer effectively remove enough of them.

Bottom line: Many areas of Colorado will likely enter the summer water season next year with some of lowest streamflows in the last 100 years with many reservoirs at or near empty. It shouldn't take a genius to figure out what happens when a place faces the worst water situation in nearly a century while trying to support a population more than four times greater than the last time that Colorado likely faced such a severe water crisis.

[Lugnuts]

Article about the future of the ski industry:

A chilling forecast for ski resorts and enthusiasts | Compass - Yahoo! Travel

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Lugnuts

Article about the future of the ski industry:

A chilling forecast for ski resorts and enthusiasts | Compass - Yahoo! Travel

Were it only climate change that will destroy the winter sports industry. Other forces are at work that will likely destroy it sooner. First, winter sports generally requires participants to have adequate discretionary income to be able to afford it. Discretionary income is shrinking in the middle class, and is likely to continue to shrink for the the foreseeable future. Second, population and sociological change in the population are conspiring to doom the ski industry. Each succeeding generation past the Baby Boomers have become more electronically-dominated couch potatoes. The Baby Boomers, who were about the most active outdoor recreation-oriented population, have now passed their prime years for those activities and, as they die off, will become a much smaller percentage of the overall population. Finally, the ski industry in the Rocky Mountain West, and particularly in Colorado, has always heavily relied on the recreational real estate development associated with it to survive financially. The boom times for that are also over, probably for good.

Lack of reliable early and late-season snowfall that climate change appears to promise will only add more distress and financial uncertainty to an already declining industry engaging in increasingly predatory competition for a shrinking customer base. A whole lot of people in Colorado are in complete denial about that, but reality will rear its head whether they want to see it or not.

[Idunn]

This from the recent report, Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the United States[1], that so many news organizations have been citing from:

• Colorado has the largest ski industry in the United States, with 20 percent of total skier visits.

• In whole the ski industry contributes $2.2 billion to the Colorado economy.

• Skier visits vary by 8 percent from good to bad ski seasons, or a $154 million difference in revenue gained.

• Under a higher-emissions scenario, average winter temperatures in Colorado will be 5º to 7º F higher by the end of this century.

• The result will be a 25 to 75 percent decrease in snow depth depending on the region within Colorado.

• Higher night temperatures will adversely affect snow making, as will fewer available water resources.

To put this in further perspective, another source predicts that, as things are going, that by 2100 only the top quarter of Aspen Mountain would have enough snow for skiing.


1) Climate Impacts on the Winter Tourism Economy in the United States,' ProtectOurWinters.org
http://www.protectourwinters.org/cli...ort/report.pdf

[nounou001]

Today we snow, very beautiful snowflakes have the opportunity to share with you

[Sobe Itsavized]

Snow piles up in southwestern Colorado - The Denver Post

We need snow up in the Denver and Boulder county! Not just in southern Colorado! ;<

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Sobe Itsavized

Snow piles up in southwestern Colorado - The Denver Post

We need snow up in the Denver and Boulder county! Not just in southern Colorado! ;<

Well, there is another "sensational" National Enquirer-like story out of the Denver Post about what is a perfectly normal (or at least used to be normal) weather event. The only thing noteworthy about it is that it was a normal snowfall in what, for nearly a year, have been very abnornally snowless winter and spring seasons in southern Colorado. The water situation in southern Colorado is also one of the worst in the state, so any precipitation there is most welcome.

[GraniteStater]

Computer models appear a bit more favorable for Colorado showing colder and semi-stormy pattern for the rest of the month. Some mountain snow possibilities with upslope potential as colder air will make inroads further south.