What a morning! The combination of snow and wind made for a mess on the roadways this morning at probably the worst time–the day when many people are headed home from Thanksgiving visits. Some of the worst areas hit were the northern portions of El Paso county. Here’s what it looked like across the Neighborhood Weather Network.

As you can see from the Falcon picture, there was a good half hour from about 7:15 to 7:45 a.m. when we really couldn’t see a thing. I have to admit that some of the snow totals were a little bit of a shock. I called for the possibility of a few inches over the Palmer Divide during my forecast yesterday morning. A couple of viewers in the Black Forest area called to say they had around 7 inches. You win some, you lose some. At least I said the roadways could be slick Here’s a look from Snow Vision at what we saw this morning.

The combination of icy roads, snow and blowing snow shut down Highway 24 from Falcon to Limon this morning. Other roads were also pretty poor. Stay safe out there!

We had quite a few different views across the Neighborhood Weather Network this morning. Briargate looked to be one of our big winners as far as snowfall was concerned. However, the combination of snow and fog this morning probably wasn’t ideal for holiday shoppers.

Pueblo didn’t have any snow on the ground but did have its share of fog.

Others had some sunshine to start the day before clouds and even some light snow began to move into Teller and northern El Paso counties around 9:00 a.m.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, and I hope you shoppers out there enjoy yourselves today!  I have an admission to make… I like snow.  There, I said it, I actually like the snow!  I used to stay up all night long as a kid just watching the snow fall in the spotlight over our back patio, drove my mother nuts.  I know I’m not alone by the way, but that said this last event was just irritating.  Lowsy 1/2 inch of snow, complete wreck on local roadways.  I just have a hard time wrapping my mind around this idea that so little snow makes such a mess on the roads around here.  It shouldn’t surprise me, I mean I’ve been here at KRDO over 9 years now and it’s not like I haven’t seen this before.  This reminds me of one of the first winter storms I was a part of here at KRDO, I like to think of it as my initiation.  We had a storm coming into the area, forecasted for about an inch and I think we received even less.  Problem was I used the phrase “no big deal” when describing this storm.  Next morning there were like 50 accidents, interstate was closed, I think the old Rockrimmon bridge claimed a few vehicles that day.  Point is that turned out to be a HUGE deal and I was just floored.  Learned a lot that day though, and it causes me to choose my words very carefully, and never before considering as many impacts as possible beyond just getting the forecast right, after all I am only as accurate as you think I am so I better communicate effectively. 

I’m from Chicago initially, and I remember only once being kept out of school due to snow.  Foot of snow?  Tough, go to school!  The one time we didn’t have to go we received about 16″ in the 4 hour period leading up to rush hour and they just couldn’t get the roadways clear in time, but they were sure trying.  Catch here of course is that they use salt there, roads end up wet most of the time even when the snow is really coming down.  Of course we don’t use salt here, water treaties and associated salinity limits are a big part of that as I understand it.  But is that the only reason why?  Is it the properties of the snow, certain temperature conditions, road design, crew response, some combination of all of the above?  I guess my whining is based on my hope that if roads are going to be such a problem we should have some real snow to play with!  Bring it on, give me a foot or 2, something I can play in with the kiddos, something that will really moisten the ground and help to alleviate moisture concerns!  A half inch of accidents just isn’t that fun for me personally or professionally!  I’m done whining now, here are a few images from the snow across the area this morning courtesy of my favorite tool here, the STORMTRACKER 13 Neighborhood Weather Network…

This view from Cripple Creek when dawn’s early light reveals enough of the terrain, and the city lights are embedded within the freshly fallen snow is one of my favorites!

Briargate was a classic example of what I was whining about this morning. Sure, it looks nice enough, but in this view I see a bunch of slip-sliding on the roadways with not enough snow to play in, fog doesn’t help either!  Last year most of our storms seemed to me to mirror this type of event, I liked the year before with all of the big storms we had!

Falcon was an icy mess too, but nice to see a little sun popping through this morning. As amazed as I am by how little snow is needed to wreck local roadways, I am nearly as impressed with how quickly the sun around here cleans up those same roadways.  Happy Black Friday everyone!

A temperature inversion is a reversal of the usual pattern in which temperature decreases with increasing altitude. During a temperature inversion the lowest temperatures are closest to the ground; warmer temperatures at found at higher altitudes. An inversion set up quickly early in the evening and you can see it displayed clearly here at 10 pm.

The station with the lowest elevation we have on this map above is at the station, adjacent to Fountain Creek. The stations east and north of here are higher and its pretty obvious to see the temperatures were warmer at this time as you increased in elevation. Even at 1am on a bigger scale, Denver, Colorado Springs and Trinidad (higher elevations) are warmer than Pueblo and areas along the Arkansas River, Limon where the weather station is along a creek and the San Luis Valley. Note the 28 at Monarch Pass (above 10,000ft)…you’d think it would be colder then Pueblo, right? Inversions are common this time of year, especially when the wind is light and the atmosphere is dry. Inversions are the reason Pueblo is usually colder than Colorado Springs at during the winter months.

Venus and Jupiter shine very brightly in the twilight dusk this week and are moving closer to each other. They end up as close to each other as they get in our sky on November 30th and December 1st. You may know that Venus is a lot smaller than Jupiter, so why does it appear the brighter of the two planets? Even though it is larger, Jupiter is 5 times farther away from us than Venus. In addition, Venus reflects the sun’s light (has a higher albedo) more then Jupiter does.

See if you can notice the two planets getting closer over the next few days…as the prime viewing may be obscured by clouds, so Tuesday is probably the best chance.

I have been making the Broncos forecast a regular part of my weekend morning shows but have not gotten around to putting a version on the web. What better place for that forecast than on our blog? For all of you fans heading to the game Sunday (or you fantasy football fans wondering if wind will have an effect on Jay Cutler’s passes), here’s your forecast:

Not much to complain about for a late-November game in the Mile High City. Sunshine and above-average temperatures sound good to me!

We had some real variability over the area this morning with areas of thick fog, sparkling sunshine, icy trees.  The variety here is why our Neighborhood Weather Network is such a great tool, we may not be able to be everywhere at once, but we can see many areas at once!  Keep in mind you can get this information anytime you like right here at KRDO.com!  I’ll let the pictures do the talking, first the fog:

In spots we had some ice and a few slick roadways:

At the same time it was clear in both Woodland Park and Cripple Creek:

As the sun came up we got a look at Nature’s art:

This viewer photo is spectacular, as seen from the Pine Creek area, I cannot credit it because I did not receive that information.  The fog is shows where temperatures this afternoon are running about 10 degrees cooler than in areas where the sun was shining when this photo was taken.  The fog may be gone, but the shallow layer of cold air that helped produce it still exists, and like water it settles along the creekbeds, in this case along Monument Creek.  Fascinating stuff for a weather geek like myself!

I liked yesterday better!  Now that we have that out of the way, and as lousy as it is outside, check out the trees on Gold Hill above Woodland Park…

Love how the trees are ”flocked”, puts the holiday feel in the air!  A combination of freezing fog and freezing drizzle has led to the ice building up on the trees, cold but pretty!  More icy precipitation is possible through tonight so be careful on local roadways.  We’ll start warming some later on Friday and the weekend looks decent enough.  Have a great day!
 

Amanda, one of our news producers here at NEWSCHANNEL 13 showed me a report by the Rocky Mountain News on their website this afternoon…probing if the orange sunsets that Denver has had over the last few days is a result of the smoke from the tragic fires in California. They did interview a forecaster at the National Weather Service office in Boulder, who said the smoke, “could have something to do with it”.

I’m here to dispute that and say that while its POSSIBLE, it isn’t likely the cause. Wind has been relatively light over the last several days and the smog/pollution from the Denver metro area hasn’t been dispersed. These particulates are likely scattering the sunlight late in the day and causing the orange/red sunsets over the Mile High City and the northern Front Range.

I submit our atmosphere via the Neighborhood Weather Network pictures below that I captured around/just before sunset on this Monday afternoon. If smoke was the cause, we’d have smoke here as well, given the prevailing northwesterly flow into Colorado on the east side of a ridge of high pressure. Notice that our sky had good visibility and no haze, indicating no smoke. In addition, our sunset was relatively color free…by Colorado standards anyway!

We are all familiar with geography and topography being closely linked to weather. If you’ve lived here for any length of time, you are probably aware that Monument Hill usually gets quite a bit more snow than downtown Colorado Springs, and you may have noticed that a westerly wind tends to warm us up due to compressional heating of the air. November 16-22 is the National Geographic Society’s Geography Awareness Week. I figured this is a great time to discuss the close links between geography and weather with some well-known examples around the US that occur outside of southern Colorado

Pacific Northwest: When winter-time temperature inversions occur in the Puget Sound Region, which sits in a “bowl” between the Olympic and Cascade Mountains, cooler air is trapped near the Earth’s surface and air pollution levels can rise significantly.

 Western US: As prevailing westerly winds carry moist Pacific air up the windward side of mountains, the air cools, condenses, and precipitates, leaving the leeward side warmer and dryer. This effect creates “rain shadow deserts” – areas with less precipitation and cloud cover than the windward side of the mountains. The Colorado Front Range along the Rocky Mountains, the Great Basin of Nevada and Utah, and the Mojave Desert east of the Sierra Nevada Mountains in California are all rain shadow deserts.

Great Lakes::This Region is known for its lake effect snow. As cold air passes over the Lakes, warmer lake water below evaporates and heats the bottom layer of cold air. Warm, moist air rises and cools, causing condensation and cloud formation. If humidity is high enough and temperatures are cold enough, snow falls. Winds push these clouds over land, where increased friction slows the winds, leading to more snowfall accumulation. As winds move farther inland and encounter hills, rising air cools even more, creating even more snow!

Great Plains:The broad, flat expanses of the Great Plains are ideal for tornado formation. The flat geography allows dry, cold air from Canada and warm, moist air from the Gulf of Mexico to come together – most tornadoes form along the front between these air masses.

Eastern US: When a high pressure system stalls over New England during winter and blows cold, dry air southwestward into the mid-Atlantic region, this air “bumps” into the Appalachian Mountains and stops. Warm air flowing over the Mountains from the Midwest overruns the cold air and traps it along the Atlantic coastal plain, creating “cold air damming.” Precipitation from the warm air aloft falls through the cold air and freezes. Some major ice storms in the Northeast and mid-Atlantic regions have occurred during cold air damming episodes.

Learn more about Geography Awareness Week: http://www.nationalgeographic.com/geography-action/index.html