Special welcome & thanks to our ’25 Pagosa Weather Board (L to R): At Large Debbie McAlister, Secretary Debbie McLain, President, Arleen Prochazka, Treasurer Connie Hayes, Vice President Udgar Parsons, At Large Jane Weitzel. (Click on title of post to see image)
Saturday – 1 February 2025 – 1:00pm
Included in this newsletter: Big Thank You Waves to Individual Donors & Our Sponsors; Community Outreach News; Doppler Radar Update, Calendar of events, CoCoRaHS and Contest Updates…
Personal Donations
Huge waves of thanks to folks who made donations in January! Special waves of thanks to: Arlie & Brian Swett, H K Strahlendorf, John Porco, John Huft, J. Eric Bickel, Doug’s View Photography, Sandra & Darin Dillon, and Marshall Clayshulte.
What your generous donation goes towards…
Your donations help us take care of our website manager, Fluid Elements, the Pagosa Weather website, commercial weather subscriptions, and other business expenses. Most importantly your donations ensure that we will be able to provide this free service for everyone for years to come!
To make a donation, click on this link: How to Donate. You can donate by PayPal, Visa or MasterCard through Square, or send a Check to: Pagosa Weather, 135-F Country Center Dr. #142, Pagosa Springs CO 81147. Thank you so much for your generosity!
Shawn and I have been truly touched by the support our followers have shown for us! THANK YOU!!!
Sponsors
We LOVE our Sponsors! They just amaze us with their support!
Dr. Leo Milner was our first sponsor and renewed again this year entering his 4th year as our sponsor. Thank you, Leo, for all your support!
2025 Sponsors! (Click on the sponsor’s name to follow to their website.)
Blizzard Level Sponsor: Ski & Bow Rack
Snowman Level Sponsors
Terry’s Colorado Home Supply & Ace Hardware
Snowball Level Sponsors
Peggy Andrews, Independent Real Estate Broker
Dr. Leo Milner, D.C., Chiropractic Services
Pagosa Wilderness + Pagosa Rafting Outfitters + A1Taxi
Storm Sponsor: The Springs Resort
Community Outreach
An Evening with Pagosa Weather & Ski Patrol – Thursday, February 13th, 5:45pm to 7:00pm!
Our Blizzard Sponsor Ski & Bow Rack is hosting an evening with Pagosa Weather and the Wolf Creek Ski Patrol Avalanche Specialist, Samuel Rooney! We’ll discuss what is keeping snow out of here and what the rest of the winter is looking like. This talk is free and open to the public!
2025 Pagosa Weather Board of Directors Meeting!
The Pagosa Weather Board of directors met on January 16th to discuss the past year and 2025 objectives.
The board is comprised of President Arleen Prochazka, Vice President Udgar Parsons, Secretary Debbie McLain, Treasurer Connie Hayes, Member At Large Debbie McAlister and new to the board this year, Member at Large Jane Weitzel.
Pagosa Weather met its financial goals this year all in thanks to wonderful sponsors and our generous donors. All expenditures will go up in 2025 but the current revenues should cover those.
Community Outreach program was discussed. 2024 was a busy year and 2025 might be busier. Pagosa Weather will continue to provide National Forest Service fire weather training, Wolf Creek Ski Patrol snow education, Earth Day cloud demonstration, and school demonstrations.
Pagosa Weather will continue to collaborate with community partners such as SJWCD. Pagosa Weather will provide weather updates for Chamber of Commerce and other community events including aviation weather support for mass balloon accessions, and the Vet 4 Vets Fly In. We are planning on a 4th of July parade float – maybe a blizzard in July!
You can look forward to five weather contests this year. Pagosa Weather will have public weather talks at Ski & Bow Rack and at the library. We are planning a winter outlook talk at an uptown location.
Winterfest!!!
Shawn and Arleen provided early morning aviation weather briefs for the balloon pilots. Unfortunately, there was a strong shear wind on Saturday morning that grounded the balloons. But Sunday morning was perfect!
Also, Arleen participated in the Penguin Plunge to help raise for funds for our sister nonprofit, the Humane Society. The water was bitter cold but the warmth from everyone who supported her, kept her a float in that cold water! She raised over $2,000 for the Humane Society.
Durango Doppler Radar UPDATE
I’ve been in touch with Grand Junction National Weather Service (NWS). They are waiting on set up of the ingest of data. Pueblo NWS is interested in seeing the data as well. So there are a number of folks pressing for it. According to NWS, the hope is that it will be available through by MRMS (NWS radar program) by summer time frame.
I reached out to the Baron Weather, the La Plata County radar contractor, with a number of questions and have not received a response.
The La Plata county airport radar is displaying only the lowest reflectivity product on their website & their app.
The Durango Doppler Radar at the LaPlata County Airport went online in August.
The radar started sending live data on October 18th, 2024. It is evident that the ground clutter has not been filtered out (see images below).
Follow this link to their Radar page: LaPlata County Doppler Radar Page
They also have an app at app stores – just search “La Plata County Weather Radar” and download it to your mobile device. Again, it is not useful for Archuleta County yet.
As soon as the data is available through the MRMS system and the data is more than just a low level beam reflectivity product, the radar will be much more useful for us in Archuleta county. Till such time, it is not useful. I’ll do a separate post as soon as the data is available and of help in analyzing the current atmosphere.
This is what was promised. This is the entire test Volume Coverage Pattern. Green and blue are excellent coverage. Yellows are decent coverage. Reds are poor coverage. Pagosa Springs will be under decent coverage certainly better than what we have had. Wolf Creek will be under excellent coverage. Note: This is not what we are seeing yet.
Pagosa Weather Calendar
- February 7th: Chamber of Commerce Gala for the 2025 Annual Chamber Community Awards! Link for details.
- February 13th, Thursday: Ski & Bow Rack Weather Talk – 5:45pm – 7:00pm
- April, 2025: Earth Day – Cloud demonstrations.
- April, 2025: Weather demonstration at Pagosa Springs Elementary School – Kindergarten
- May 21st, Wednesday, 1:00pm – 2:00pm: Monsoon ’24 Outlook, Ruby Sisson Library.
- July 4th: 4th of July Parade!
- October: CoCoRaHS – Snow training
- November: Winter Outlook
If any teachers or organizations would like us to visit for a presentation, send an email to Arleen at pagosaweather@gmail.com.
CoCoRaHS Newsletter Updates
Pagosa Weather is the Archuleta County “CoCoRaHS Coordinator” and “Weather-Ready Nation Ambassador”.
Weather Data Lovers, CoCoRaHS has released CoCoRaHS Data Explorer, or “DEx” for short. This tool provides countless new ways to visualize and analyze data. Note: it is highly recommended to use larger screens when viewing the DEx.
Click here to go to the DEx Station Search page for data access to any station in the database. (open to the public)
HELP! Do you or do you have a friend that lives in one of the four areas highlighted below?
Archuleta County is well represented but we still have BIG data gaps. We really need a volunteer in Arboles, Dulce, west on Highway 160, and Pagosa Junction. Sign up by filling out this web page: https://www.cocorahs.org/application.aspx. Or send us a note and we can send you more detailed information.
Perhaps, our March Newsletter will show fewer red circles!
The red circles are areas we could use a CoCoRaHS observer. Let us know if you can give us 5 to 10 minutes every morning to measure precip and snow. CoCoRaHS provides all the training you need.
Pagosa Weather January SUMMARY & February Outlook
Shawn’s January Summary with my February Outlook will be out later today.
Contest Updates
Special Thanks to our sponsor businesses that have stepped forward to sponsor our weather contests. They are a lot of fun!
Upcoming Contests
| Contest | Issue Date | Sponsor |
| 75 Degrees | Mar 15th | Pagosa Mountain Sport |
| Monsoon | May 15th | The Springs Resort |
| 1st Inch of Snow | August 15th | Terry’s Ace |
| Two Feet Snow | Oct 15th | Alley House |
| Wolf Creek Snow | Nov 15th | Ski &Bow Rack |
Active Contest – First 24″ of Snow Winter 2023/2024
Forecast the date and time we measure 24” of snow depth on the ground. The person with the closest guess will get a $100 gift certificate to Alley House! Note: This contest is closed to any new guesses.
The Pagosa Weather Team will determine and verify the 24 inches of snow. The verification area is located about 7 miles north of Pagosa in O’Neal Park just off of North Piedra, past the two cattle guards at 8,030 feet elevation. The deepest snow depth to date has been 6 inches.
Huge “Thanks” to Joni, Martin, Corey, Dana, Jim, and the entire team at Alley House for their support and sponsoring this contest! Let’s have fun and support our local businesses!
Only a few of you left in this contest. Let it SNOW! Let it SNOW!
2/2/2025 14:00 Rick Holter
2/2/2025 9:30 John Farley
2/2/2025 16:30 Ed H
2/7/2025 6:00 Richard Hash
2/14/2025 10:00 Kayla Cornish
2/25/2025 16:00 Debra Wallen
3/10/2025 8:00 Christian Cornish
6/16/2025 6:30 Michael Bobbitt
Active Contest:
Forecast the Total Seasonal Snowfall for Wolf Creek Ski Area on their final day of operation. (closed to new guesses)
The person with the closest guess will win a $50 gift certificate for SKI & BOW RACK!!! In addition, Ski & Bow Rack has offered HATS for the next closest guesses!
Huge thanks to Brittany & Robert and the rest of the team at Ski & Bow Rack for the support of our weather contests and for being our Blizzard level sponsor!
As of today, February 1st, 2025, Wolf Creek had measured 119” so far this winter. The ski resort average is 360”. Their final day of normal operation is expected to be in early April 2024.
Everyone is in the running… Come on La Nina & Westerly QBO! Do your magic!!! MJO swing back around! Break out Arctic Blast! Keep up your snow dances!!! Anything is possible yet.
Abey Nelson 210
Mike Buckingham 240
Carol Holleran 257
John Farley 271
Greg Williams 278
Brady Turner 281
Kay Kaylor 291
Joanne Shelton 301
Derrall Smith 301
Lisa Baker 302.5
Jenny Yurechko 305
Martha Ball 308
Joan Scott 309
Liz Murray 312
Keith Jones 321
Jana Hoyer 322
Eric Fisk 323
Holly Baldwin 325
Jennie Leverett 333
Meg Wempe 333
mike offerman 340
Jesse Beach 342
Robert Bency 347
Tina Edwards 349
Al Pfister 372
Traci Landis 373
Lisa Vail 375
Donna Lewis 377
Bob Theodore 393
Jackie Cox 396
Larry Walton 399
Kitty Neal 401
Melanie Fortner 408
Peggy Andrews 411
Bryan Weitzel 411
Michele Berndt 415
Krisite Bixler 419
Nathanael Ward 422
Mark Langford 425
Kenny Rogers 429
Eric Bickel 433
Gene Geren 473
Mary Stokes 491
Douglas Fortner 506
– Arleen
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