Nature Is Go'n'a Get Ya'

Nothing ground-breaking to say today, so I'll let the pictures and video do the talking.

I stumbled upon the following graphic on AOL News yesterday and it gave me a little chuckle. There have been several other versions of this map published in the past 24 hours, but I think this is one of the more simple ones to look at and understand. It basically describes how likely you are to be "dead by nature" by region.




The cold air has moderated over the last couple of days. The storm system that brought snow to Las Vegas yesterday has also plowed over most of the west. Everybody seems to be getting snow. We have a few showers in the Denver area right now, but nothing to write home about.

The situation developing in the midwest and Ohio Valley should be interesting over the next few days. Death, destruction via ice and snow. Prepare for those headlines.

... but, the cold air will return to the northern Rockies as exemplified in this forecast pulled from the Butte, Montana NWS point forecast page.



Looking in on the warmer latitudes ...




Satellite image used with permission; courtesy of IPS Meteostar Inc.



On the lighter side, this was posted over on Storm Track today.


Weather Channel Accused of Pro-Weather Bias




UPDATE:
We just had a nice graupel shower a minute ago. I took some pictures but don't have my cable with me. Hopefully I'll have them up tomorrow.

UPDATE 2:
Quite the wave of showers that have just come off the mountains. We could be seeing some heavy snow with embedded small to moderately sized graupel. I wouldn't be all that surprised to see reports of thundersnow. Lightning is quiet for the time being, but I'll keep my eyes out.



Dann.

Continuing Cold

Well, since I was tracking temperatures in Montana yesterday, I figured I'd update a few today. I'm just including the METAR sites this time as there were not outstanding intermediate readings.

Note, these are not official climatological lows for any specific period. They simply are the lowest reported reading or reported minimum within the last 24 hours ending today at 22Z.

-33º Havre (with wind chills approaching -60ºF!)
-32º Glasgow
-32º Jordan
-29º Glendive
-29º Lewistown
-28º Wolf Point
-27º Dillon
-26º Baker
-26º Great Falls
-26º Sydney
-25º Cut Bank
-23º Miles City
-19º Billings
-17º Butte
-16º Helena

The -33ºF in Havre was the lowest observation that I could find. That is cold!



...

Not to be out done, Denver experienced some cold this morning as well. I was coming back from a graduation party at * ahem *, four this morning and I noticed that it seemed "Butte-cold" out. What do I mean by "Butte-cold"? Well, growing up in Butte, Montana, during similar arctic air masses, the cold air would often sink into the valleys of southwestern Montana creating extremely cold pockets of air. I've seen as low as -48ºF and been outside at -46ºF (imagine me sitting in my living room in back in the late 90's, preparing to go out and deliver newspapers when turning on the Weather Channel and seeing THAT on the local forecast). It felt similar in Denver this morning as the cold air hugged the lower areas in the Front Range. It was cool to see all the refineries in Commerce City and their billowing steam plumes coming to an abrupt stop at the top of the inversion. One refinery had a nice flame on the top which was flickering and illuminating the "cloud deck" almost making it look like there were explosions occurring. It was very odd.

Speaking of inversions, check out the sounding from this morning!


Click for larger image.
From http://rap.ucar.edu/weather

Now let's talk temperatures...

Minimums from official stations in the Denver area this morning:
-19º Denver International Airport
-13º Buckley Air Force Base
-11º Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport
-9º Centennial Airport


Minimums from elsewhere along the Front Range and Northeast Colorado:
-20º Greeley
-18º Fort Collins
-16º Sidney, NE
-15º Akron
-13º Cheyenne, WY
-9º Pueblo
-8º Colorado Springs

UDFCD Mesonet Minimums:
-21º Brighton North
-18º Brighton
-17º Pump Station 3 (E Aurora)
-16º Button Rock (Boulder County)
-13º Louisville Lake (Louisville)
-13º Urban Farm (Stapleton-Denver)
-10º Highlands Ranch
-9º Aurora Reservoir
-9º Aurora Town Hall
-9º Quincy Reservoir
-8º Diamond Hill (W Downtown Denver)
-8º Ward (Boulder County)
-6º Squaw Mountain (Clear Creek County)*
-1º Hiwan Golf Club (Jefferson County)*
2º Elbert*
5º Cal-Wood Ranch (Boulder County)*
5º Sugarloaf (Boulder County)*
7º Blue Mountain (Jefferson County)*
11º Castle Rock*
* stations at higher elevations either in the foothills or on the Palmer Divide

Wow, that's cold for Denver! The low at the airport of -19º smashes the record by 15ºF!!


Elsewhere in the world:
Click for larger image.
This is Typhoon 27W Dolphin. Figured that might warm you all up just a bit.

Satellite image used with permission; courtesy of IPS Meteostar Inc.

Dann.