Tag: jamestown (Page 4 of 8)

Why was this week’s snowstorm so easy to predict?

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Two weekends in a row, forecast models get to pat themselves on the back for accurately predicting major snowstorms more than seven days in advance. While this is a great showcase for the advancement of modern numerical weather prediction, it shouldn’t be considered a common occurrence. Model uncertainty, especially that far in advance, is still very large. After all, weather is the poster child for chaos theory!

As this week’s storm slid across the North Pacific Ocean on it’s way to Colorado, we were hesitant to inject any definitive snowfall amounts into our forecasts. Remarkably, looking back, if we had to issue a forecast a week ahead of time, it wouldn’t have looked all that different from our snowfall map the day before. We explain why this storm was a relatively easy forecast, and issue a few words of caution as we head through the second half of our winter season.

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Final Forecast: Storm system right on track beginning this evening

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Storm system making landfall over southern California this afternoon

The strong winter storm is still right on track to hit the Denver Metro area and much of Colorado. As we discussed in our previous post, this storm looks impressive and will lead to several inches of snow on the ground by Tuesday morning. In this final update, we provide our snowfall forecast from tonight into Tuesday for Denver, Boulder and the adjacent Foothills.

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Episode #23: Snowstorm Predictions

What factors are impacting our forecast for the upcoming snowstorm? What are the potential implications if we officially adopt the naming of winter storms? Where did Joseph get the mysterious box of cookies he brought to the podcast? Listen to find out!

*NOTE* For those interested in discussion related specifically to the impending snowstorm, that begins at the 1 hour, 10 minute mark of the audio

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The week ahead: January 4-8, 2016

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We hope you all had a great holiday to close out the year. Our weather has remained cold, but at least fairly sunny over the last week or so. For the first full week of 2016, the main story will be the arrival of frequent but weak weather systems along the California coastline, each a little more potent than the prior.  By the time they arrive in eastern Colorado, they will stripped of most of their moisture and energy, but we may be able to squeeze a few flakes out, even on the Plains. Read on for the details.

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