Arleen & Shawn were up bright and early to brief the Wolf Creek Ski Patrol folks (Click on title of post to see image)
Thursday – 2 January 2025 – 8:00pm
First, Happy New Year from the Pagosa Weather Team to all of our followers!
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 December! There were SO many generous folks over the holidays! Special waves of thanks to: Ruby Osberg, Dana & Frank Snyder, Lana & Toby Summers, Barbara Pugh, Susan Dussell, Ken Daniels, R H Potenz, Lori Davenport, Paul Kriescher, and Sandra & Darin Dillon!
Also, I would like to extend special recognition to these folks who make automated payments every month: Ernest O’Toole, Deborah Fox, Kevin Ridley, and Kurt Huffman. Thank you!
Full list of 2024 individual donors! Thank you!
18th Annual Festival of Trees! Special wave of thanks to the Bank of Colorado, Mary Tighe, and Jann Pitcher who won bids on the Pagosa Weather tree. Thank you for your generosity. (full report on the tree below)
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!!!
Scroll past sponsor logos to to see NEWS on Community Outreach, the RADAR, Calendar of Events, CoCoRaHS and Contest Updates.
Sponsors
We LOVE our Sponsors! They just amaze us with their support!
Huge wave of “THANKS” to Peggy Andrews, Independent Real Estate Broker who renewed for her fourth consecutive year as a Snowball Sponsor. Thank you, Peggy, for your continued support.
Click on the sponsor’s logo to follow to their website.
Blizzard Level Sponsor
Snowman Level Sponsors
Snowball Level Sponsors
Storm Sponsor
Community Outreach
2024 Pagosa Weather Wrap Up
2024 was another busy year for Shawn and Arleen at Pagosa Weather. We are so thankful to our Board members, CoCoRaHS observers and other volunteers who have helped us this year! Thank you!
- Over 10,000 followers on Facebook
- Sending over 960 emails with each post
- 226 Website Forecast posts
- Two Seasonal Outlooks
- 12 Monthly Summaries & Newsletters
- 18 Special Event announcements plus forecasts
- Seven Weather Contests
- School Weather demonstration at Our Savior Lutheran School Kindergarten Class
- School Weather demonstration at Pagosa Peaks Open School (PPOS) Kindergarten
- Aviation weather briefs for Winterfest 2024
- Aviation weather briefs for Colorfest
- Fire Weather briefs (3X) for San Juan National Forest Service, Columbine Fire District
- Fire Weather Brief for San Juan National Forest Service, Pagosa District, Fire Crews
- Prescription Burn Viewing – San Juan National Forest Service, Columbine Fire District
- Monsoon Weather Talk at Ruby Sisson Library
- Winter Weather Talk at Ruby Sisson Library
- Weather Talk at Pagosa Springs Photography Club
- Winter Brief for Wolf Creek Ski Patrol
- Booth at Mountain Chili Cha Cha
- Booth at Earth Day ’24
- Entry in Pagosa Springs 4th of July Parade
- “All things Weather” brief with (CAIC) at Ski & Bow Rack
- Safety article collaboration with Upper San Juan Search & Rescue
- San Juan Water Conservancy District Educational Video Series:
- — Featured in “The Value of Snow” Video
- — Information table at “This Is Your Watershed” video launch event
- Running the dogs with San Juan Sled Dogs
- Decorated tree for Festival of Trees Fundraiser
Winterfest!!! January 17th-19th, 2025!
Shawn and Arleen will be providing early morning aviation weather briefs for the balloon pilots.
Also, Arleen will be participating in the Penguin Plunge to help raise for funds for our sister nonprofit, the Humane Society. She already has her penguin suit all ready!
We’ll send a full post on Winterfest next weekend.
Ski Patrol
Arleen and Shawn were up early on a chilly Friday the 13th, to be up at Wolf Creek Ski Resort to brief the Ski Patrol folks before they started their day. They shared with them what Pagosa Weather has to offer on our web page, what our winter outlook is and how snow forms and how the density of snow is impacted. Such knowledge is essential to the key safety job that they have.
Huge thanks to Dan and the rest of the folks Ski Patrol for the invitation. We look forward to collaborating with them in the future. We have already set up one meeting with one of the Ski Patrol leaders in January.
18th Annual Festival of trees
The Festival of Tress is a Town of Pagosa Event to experience the magic of 20 beautifully decorated Christmas trees, each crafted by local non-profits to raise funds for their causes.
Special wave of thanks to the Bank of Colorado, Mary Tighe, and Jann Pitcher who won bids on the Pagosa Weather tree. Thank you for your generosity.
Pagosa Weather team decorated a live about 9 foot, White Fir tree. We adorned it with snowmen, snowflakes, red ornaments, red and white lights, and top with a large, iridescent snowflake.
Huge waves of THANKS to The Pagosa Weather snowflakes: Jane, Jana, Deborah, Debbie, Arleen. Thank you ladies! I was very thankful for our board member Deborah. She found our beautiful tree and she also solved all our logistical issues over the two days of setting up the tree and decorating it! I’m so glad you are on our team, Deborah!
San Juan National Forest
Shawn and Arleen met with the San Juan National Forest Service Fuels Crew Captains Rizz and Josh from the Columbine ranger districts. They spent time discussing the difference in the winter patterns and the summer patterns. Providing weather insight for the forest fire crews is one of Pagosa Weather’s priorities.
Durango Doppler Radar UPDATE
There is nothing new to report this month. The radar still appears to be displaying only the lowest reflectivity product.
The Durango Doppler Radar at the LaPlata County Airport went online in August. LaPlata Public and Governmental Affairs Manager sent us the following statement in September, “Things are just taking much longer than we anticipated and there have been a few setbacks at the end of construction. We’re (still) close to having an app and web plugin but we don’t have a date as to when that will be. I’m sorry it’s taking so long and we don’t have a more accurate estimate, but it’s been a battle and continues to be so.”
The radar started sending live data on October 18th, 2024. I posted this message to the LaPlata County Government Facebook page, “That is great to see! I see that the ground clutter has not been filtered out yet – HD mountains for example. This appears to only be the lowest reflectivity product. Can you confirm that? Is it possible to change it to another product such as composite reflectivity? I really hope efforts are still being made to load data to NWS MRMS app so all radar data to include Grand Junction, Alamosa, Albuquerque, and Flagstaff are integrated to give the best possible analysis.”
This was the reply from the LaPlata County Government, “Good to hear from you folks – we’re still doing some fine-tuning but wanted to get this exciting community resource out to the residents and visitors of La Plata County so everyone can get comfortable with the app as we continue to expand the system’s capabilities.”
Follow this link to their Radar page: LaPlata County Doppler Radar Page
They also have an app on the Apple store – just search “La Plata County Weather Radar” and download it to your mobile device. They’re working on an Android version.
The data is still not available through the NOAA radar page, MRMS.
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.
The test Volume Coverage Pattern for the .5 degree radar beam. 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.
If any teachers or organizations would like us to visit for a presentation, send an email to Arleen at pagosaweather@gmail.com.
Pagosa Weather Calendar
- January 17th-19th: Winterfest!
- April, 2025: Weather demonstration at Pagosa Springs Elementary School – Kindergarten
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 February 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 December SUMMARY & January Outlook
Click here for Shawn’s December, 2024 summary with my January Outlook.
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 | Feb 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!
Good Luck to everyone! Let it SNOW! Let it SNOW!
1/1/2025 Kitty Neal
1/2/2025 6:00 Steve Voorhis
1/2/2025 4:30 Michelle Juneau
1/2/2025 8:00 Lisa Vail
1/3/2025 6:30 Janice Davis
1/4/2025 3:00 Devin Edwards
1/4/2025 5:00 Mark Langford
1/4/2025 7:30 Bryan Weitzel
1/5/2025 7:30 Susan Dussell
1/6/2025 8:00 Sue Watson
1/6/2025 8:00 Brad Hall
1/7/2025 14:30 Debbie Moore
1/7/2025 7:30 John Mclellan
1/7/2025 7:30 Jeff Witten
1/7/2025 22:30 Nolan Stretton
1/7/2025 3:30 Teresa Turner
1/7/2025 5:30 Peggy pike
1/10/2025 20:00 Duwain Whitis
1/10/2025 16:30 Kathleen Porter
1/10/2025 9:30 Kenny Rogers
1/10/2025 8:00 Franklin Snyder
1/10/2025 Suzanne Coe
1/12/2025 8:30 Darrell Smith
1/13/2025 7:30 David Wolff
1/16/2025 5:00 Sheldon Burks
1/16/2025 Barbara Pugh
1/17/2025 7:00 Mike Offerman
1/17/2025 10:30 Kelly Prudhomme
1/18/2025 12:30 Corey Shult
1/20/2025 7:15 Val Valentine
1/21/2025 4:00 Michelle Tressler-Kolkau
1/22/2025 18:30 Wendy Burton
1/23/2025 15:30 Justin Lewis
1/27/2025 6:00 Musetta Wollenweber
1/27/2025 17:00 Maria Gallegos-Kelly
1/28/2025 2:00 Brenda Hash
1/30/2025 6:00 Jana Hoyer
1/31/2025 20:00 Patti Spindler
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, January 1st, 2025, Wolf Creek had measured 104” 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
