Snow tomorrow night…

Satellite image

Pagosa Springs Climatology…

The average high for this date is 45 and the record high of 60 occurred in 1986. The average low is 12 and the record is -15 which occurred in 1913.

Overall situation…

Things are lining up nicely for the system tomorrow night and Thursday.

Then a weak system is possible Saturday night/Sunday.  It will lack moisture and stay to our north so I expect very little from it.

A decent system is possible Monday night/Tuesday.  The models continue to slide this system forward and backward 12 hours and can’t decide on the track and strength. At this point forecast confidence in the details is low.

My forecast…

Tonight through Wednesday evening… Skies will be mostly clear until tomorrow evening. Lows tonight will be 0-15 and highs tomorrow will be 50-55.

Wednesday night to Thursday evening… Expect more clouds and precip.  The best chance for snow is after midnight to noon on Thursday. Showers will linger until around sunset especially over the mountains. The snow level by late Thursday morning will flirt with 8,000ft so “rainflakes” or wet hard-to-accumulate snow is possible in the afternoon.  CAPEs, a measure of instability, indicate potential for thundersnow – fun stuff!

High temps will be upper 30s to low 40s.  It will be warm enough Thursday afternoon that we might not have to shovel snow! Winds will peak in the 25-30mph range.

Precip amounts:

0.3 to 0.6” liquid and 2-4” of snow below 7,500ft and 3-6” above 7,500ft

~1.0” of liquid and 8-12” of snow in the mountains

Friday and Saturday… Mostly sunny and warm with highs 50-55 and lows 5-20.  Snow that falls on Thursday will be nearly gone by Friday afternoon – It’s yo-yo season in Colorado!

Saturday night/Sunday… There will be a few more clouds and spotty mountain snowshowers.  A few lucky spots could eke out an inch of snow, but I hardly expect anything from this system.

My next post will be tomorrow evening.

– Shawn

2 Mar 2021 pm Satellite 3
Satellite shows the Wednesday night/Thursday system still off the coast. The red arrows indicate the projected path. It’s looking good for us.
2 Mar 2021 pm NWS 72 hour snowfall
The NWS 72 hour snowfall shows 4” in town and 11” up at Wolf Creek. Warm temps by late Thursday morning will make it harder for the snow to accumulate
2 Mar 2021 am UofU Wolf Creek ensemble snow
The GFS (solid red line) shows around 16” on Thursday while the ever stingy Canadian model (dashed red line) shows 8”. Both models have been slowly increasing snow amounts each model run. Note that the Canadian model shows 1-2” Saturday night/Sunday while the GFS shows nothing during that time. Also both models hint at the next system Monday night/Tuesday.

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I’ve been a “weather geek” since I was young child. I joined the military out of high school and was lucky to get my dream job in weather. I have 20 years of military weather experience which includes forecasting the weather all over the world. Highlights were six years in Alaska and making life and death weather decisions during deployments. I love mountains, I love snow, and I love summertime thunderstorms. I spend a bunch of time playing outdoors and found my paradise in Pagosa Springs. I do Pagosa Weather as a community service. Hopefully you find us helpful!
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