NoSnovember, The Coming Winter, And A Few Notes About Our Climate. As mentioned the other day, our next best chance of a first accumulating snow is Monday. I dont think it will happen, though I will be happy to say I was wrong if it does! Denver may get some accumulation (up to an inch or so) but it looks to stay as cold rain with maybe a few wet flakes out here. Temperatures look stuck in the 40s and maybe falling through the day. We will certainly have another hard freeze Monday Night, but this is now old news, with successive night after night bringing us freezes, and now frequently, hard freezes. Welcome to November. While November is already looking a lot cooler than October was, we still may be a couple weeks away from any semblance of a severe arctic cold snap. It may surprise you to know that statistically, years in which above normal snows and cold occur in October in Colorado, this has not very often boded well for a cold, snowy winter. Autumn snow does not always equal Winter snow. The past few weeks have featured colder and snowier than normal autumn weather from Siberia (Eastern Russia) through Northern Canada. Whoop-Dee-Do you say, what does that mean for us? Well, quite consistently, this later on has bearing on our weather: It almost universally means that as winter approaches and then comes, our weather will be colder than normal, or at least bring us some sharp arctic cold fronts. We find ourselves in a set-up similar to harsh winters that occurred in the 20th Century. The pleasant Autumn will have to be paid for. Mother Nature only loans it to us. While some weather outlets want to claim El Nino ( I think it will be a weak oen) may bring us a warmer than normal winter, I dont subscribe to those forecasts at all. I think Ill place my bets on projections of a somewhat colder than normal set up as we approach winter. One thing you need to know about even Eastern Colorado is that the climate is not all the same. The past week, the Northeastern Corner of the state (us) has been much cooler than the rest of Eastern Colorado. This is really quite typical. Sterling and Julesburg are the ice box of Eastern Colorado. We are the first to feel arctic cold fronts, and the last to see them leave. Sometimes Sterling is mired in the 10s and 20s in the Winter for highs while places like La Junta bask in sunshine and 50s in December. This is typical of the extremes of Colorado. Now, this makes sense in general, we are the farthest north portion of the Colorado plains, hundreds of miles closer to the Dakotas and their winters than the southern fringes of Eastern Colorado which come near much milder climes in Oklahoma, New Mexico, and the Texas Panhandle. One meteorologist I know quickly agreed with me that the climate changes (for the cooler/colder) more between Lamar/Springfield,Colorado (Southeast Corner) and Sterling than it does between Sterling and Bismark,North Dakota. Dont get me wrong, the Sterling area does not have winters as harsh as North Dakota , but even as last winters cold snap after cold snap hit, and temperatures plunged last winter as low as -25 to -30 on the thermometer (not including windchill) we found ourselves with a winter very akin to that of the Dakotas. Back in December 1989, temperatures bottomed out between -35 and -40! Our area knows harsh winter cold, it just does not stick around as long as it does in the Dakotas. Ill be talking about it more in the coming weeks, but again, when all is said and done, I think we are ultimately in for a shock to the system as we get deeper into November and December. Arctic Fronts are now slamming into the Eastern United States shattering record lows, and bringing some of the earliest snowfalls on record. It is only a matter of time before one sets its eye on the Central and Northern High Plains and brings us to winters doorstep. Who knows, maybe a blizzard or even two are awaiting us in the coming weeks.
Posted on: Sat, 01 Nov 2014 22:10:08 +0000
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