Jan 13, 2025, Updated Jan 14, 2025
Next Set of Predictions thru Spring Break will be Released Wednesday
Updated Maps
GFS 500 mb, GFS 24/hr All Snow, Euro and GFS Ensemble Total Snow
Pattern Discussion from yesterday
I posted this next screenshot yesterday and didn’t have time to go through it. It shows a cutout of the entire pattern for the last three cycles. You may remember an earlier explanation for the pink shaded areas, those are cut-off low systems that are prone to fall and spring and are not expected to repeat during the meat of the season.
That is why southern Colorado got off to such a great start, there were a couple of cutoff lows that sat and spun, but it was fool’s gold. The setup to this season, back in August and September, was clear to see that northern Colorado would be the best position from the storm track.
Initially I thought it was going to be feast or famine season. The cycle length stretched out to 62 days during the transition cycle from last year’s pattern to the current. The length has shortened and is now set in almost equal parts of Ridge Pattern and Pacific Storm pattern.
Two distinct patterns this year each lasting about 3 weeks, the Pacific Storm pattern, followed by the Ridge pattern. We are in the Ridge pattern now until February 3rd when we will flip back to the Pacific Storm pattern.
The feast or famine part of the pattern that had a relatively dry October followed by a wet November, has filled the dryer parts in nicely. That is the upper left section of the cycle chart. In October, it is common to have holes in the cycling pattern due to the position of the jet stream. The storms follow the jet stream and that time of year, in August and September, the jet stream is up in Canada, so the storms track there. Thus, no storms through the regions we track.
In the middle section of the cycle chart, you can see the data that told us what to project forward for the next cycle. There were 3 good storm systems with a couple of southern track systems that hit Lake Tahoe.
Going down to the third cycle, or the bottom left of the cycle chart, it has filled in even more, adding 2 more storms to the Active part of the pattern. That is without much help from our teleconnection friend the MJO (Madden Julian Oscillation). The MJO is an equatorial fluctuation in tropical weather that when it is strong, adds convective energy to the pattern storms, making them bigger. We had amplification during parts of the first and second cycles, but since mid-December the MJO has been relatively weak.
Below is the current position of the MJO chart and its position on the globe since December 4th. Followed by an ensemble spaghetti model combining 30 separate forecast projections. The ensemble mean (black line) is for the MJO to move into phase 1 and quickly move through phase 2, 3 and 4 before returning to neutral.
Between Jan 16th and Jan 21, we could get a bump in output (stronger storms) as I have noticed that a strong MJO in phases 1, 2, and 6, 7 and 8 seem to be the most favorable for snowfall for the west. Phases 3 and 4 seem to suck energy away.
Now I am not an expert on the MJO this is just an observation over the last 5 years or so, but I am collecting data, and we’ll see how that fares over the coming years.
Let’s watch the storms currently on the GFS that are coming for the 17-18th, and especially the very small Jan 22nd storm, to see if they grow due to the MJO influence. Last thing, there is generally a lag in the current position of the MJO and when the storms increase. Between 3-4 days, meaning if the MJO is strong on Jan 15th, it wouldn’t kick in until around Jan 18th.
Upcoming Storms
The Cycle chart tells the story for the upcoming storms. The next storm hits the Pacific Northwest late Thursday and will track southeast hitting Utah late Friday and Colorado early Saturday morning.
The models are not in tune yet with a solution, so I’ll list the GFS, then the Euro and GFS ensemble model runs, so we’ll wait until we get a little closer. All solutions have east of the divide getting good snow, let’s see if that continues.
Free Snow Concierge–Remember, the Long-Range Forecast Predictions can be projected out for the rest of the season. We don’t release them because we like to “fine tune” the dates of storms; especially because we dial in the forecast by just 1 day’s tolerance. You can email me at Mike@FutureSnow.co anytime to take advantage of this free service. We can tell you when and where to go and give you a personalized forecast for your trip.
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Thank you for reading the blog and as always if you have any questions, please email me at Mike@FutureSnow.co.