 Welcome to the weather forecast for the week beginning Wednesday, February 7th 2024. This is chief meteorologist John Ennsworth for Longmont public media a couple days from now Friday will be our new moon The Sun is pretty active again. We got a very large Spot come around you get about five six earths in the black parts there. So this is a big system Looking at drought over the last week. We have seen some relief down these south central mountains Not much else has changed. That's kind of a winter norm Looking nationwide. You see a decrease in both areas of More severe drought. It's nice news for as a nation kind of Getting into a good place smoke wise and nothing in the west. Okay. Let's look at the snowpack And we see Few out the snow season so far. Can't keep an eye on the date here there's the end of January and Very end of January and this is the most current and see we're bouncing along a little below or at 93% statewide Okay, that's pretty good This next system will bring in more after that we get another big break, but it'd be nice just to get across that green line Looking at the last Storm, this is precipitation. This is not snowfall. It's the amount of water that came down Over an inch for much of Longmont or near an inch down and so the southeast part of the town Look at that up to almost two inches one and three-quarter inches of water in Boulder And if you get snowfall because it was so warm at the beginning it was rain up to When it came down a slush and the slush then got rained down So we it's kind of hard to say we got around two inches seems to be what everybody is confident with Looking down here in Boulder, we see much more significant amounts five six Inches of snow right up in the foothills 15 inches. So yep. Good moisture This is the precipitation. There's something wrong with this. This is just is not the last seven days I've worked with it the website just wasn't giving me the data. So we'll move on Taking a look at possible convection or severe weather just on the California coast or Wednesday moving in the southern Arizona as well For Thursday and then south of us as the system comes by Friday We have western slope precipitation some heavy amounts of snow in the higher elevations We're in a big sloppy messy Set of systems kind of over the entire West. It's just a trough over the West and lots of stuff happening California and Arizona rain and its interior snows for This is Thursday. So Western slopes again You'll see a lot of clouds a lot of low clouds hugging the mountains if you look west on Thursday And then Friday we get some rain in the morning. Maybe snow flurries The models are showing rain, but it's in the 20s. So it's got to be snow So we might see a snow rain mix midday before the main system comes in Friday night And the main system is very high agreement a significant amount of water coming Normal temperatures going from 45 to 48. We're on the climb towards spring now with nighttime temperatures 18 up to 19 Expected with a big dip in the temperatures here And that's what's going to make the snow story this weekend different than last lots of moisture in the West This is a spinning system coming in on the coast on Saturday p.m. The trough is starting to pass over the state temperatures last week you can see we're actually above normal on Saturday and The coolness is just in mountainous areas, but this week There is a lot more cool or a little bit below normal better in the mountains That's the snow maker. Also, we're getting a last-minute fetch of moisture up from the Gulf So the low-level dew points are looking good right at our 32 or just even above It first so you see oh, that's wrong That's Saturday noon Saturday evening And Saturday midnight Didn't look like that way in practice The snow just kind of keeps on going. It's very good. So let's take a look at the animation here Going Thursday into Friday. You can see the trough digging down into the Southwest pretty strong system positively tilted, but That's okay We just need that upslope and we're good little ripple comes in behind it I don't think there's any moisture for it to act on then we get a ridge back over us for midweek Little something passes and then the ridge pops up again in the West and over Colorado going into the end of next week So this is all the focus right now. We have to have something else come out of the Model to be interested in right now. There isn't anything interesting in the future. So here comes the cool air for the weekend And you can see that's some good cold air pushing down into Texas You can see the below normal temperatures over the snowpack It's expected to hang around into the beginning of the week and then things start to moderate With the ridge popping back up. You can see the warmth increases except for snowy areas Into next week. I'm just gonna show a little bit of this the News is talking a lot about the atmospheric river, which I suppose is this We've seen worse on other times and we've seen California get rain and thunderstorms without An atmospheric river. So whatever and over us the amount of Precipitated water is not terribly unusual either. So, oh well, here's our surface dew points Taking a look. It's really dry going into the end of the week and you can see this little River, I'm not gonna call. I shouldn't use river a little pull of moisture up into the system And that's the good news for the snow and moisture. So let's put this in motion different models have Different treatment. I think the canyons a lot more snowy. You can see right there There it is through the weekend and then by Sunday morning. It's pulling on out to the southeast Yeah, so for the next five days there seems to be a good bullseye here from Fort Collins down to Western Denver With that's eight to ten Even a little higher in spots. That's pretty good. It's airport east of Denver a little less one two three inch Totals is very spotty. So I don't know if I really see Banded snow features here. That's kind of a line. Maybe that's the line So I don't know how much the jet is gonna play in that. I guess that's sort of a line through there Connecting the docks right looking for precipitation Very similar pattern. So most of this should come this snow not as rain The Canadian has we're over here Six ish or above with a bullseye way out here in the Northeast Plains the North American model has us in a Looks like a six eight Maybe nine inch area here. There's a definitely a bound there. Maybe there. I'm just trying to see bands And I'm not really seeing them. Well, this is gonna be a pretty good snow event. That's that's a good amount Well the next ten days pattern really doesn't change there's a little added to the mountains, so it's gonna be quiet after that So we have 40s 50s Finally highs in the 30s on Saturday, which last week we stayed in the upper 30s 40s 35 on Sunday as the system pulls away That's all I've got. I'll keep updating things that the Longmont leader. So check that out This has been Chief Mirovich John Misworth urging you to keep looking up