Roger Pielke Sr. passes this on to me with the note:
Hi Anthony, This is quite unusual! Source: NWS, Riverton, WY
URGENT - WINTER WEATHER MESSAGE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE RIVERTON WY 309 AM MDT SAT AUG 15 2009 ...LATE SUMMER SNOWSTORM EXPECTED FOR THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS TODAY... .AN UNSEASONABLY EARLY SNOWSTORM IS EXPECTED TO AFFECT THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS ABOVE 9000 FEET TODAY AS A STRONG PACIFIC TROUGH OF LOW PRESSURE TRACKS EAST ACROSS THE AREA... WYZ008-009-151800- /O.NEW.KRIW.WW.Y.0030.090815T1500Z-090816T0000Z/ BIGHORN MOUNTAINS WEST-BIGHORN MOUNTAINS SOUTHEAST- 309 AM MDT SAT AUG 15 2009 ...WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM THIS MORNING TO 6 PM MDT THIS EVENING FOR ELEVATIONS ABOVE 9000 FEET... THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN RIVERTON HAS ISSUED A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR THE BIG HORN MOUNTAINS ABOVE 9000 FEET WHICH IS IN EFFECT FROM 9 AM THIS MORNING TO 6 PM MDT THIS EVENING. RAINFALL ALONG WITH A FEW EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS WILL OCCUR THIS MORNING BEFORE CHANGING OVER TO SNOW ABOVE 9000 FEET BY 9 AM. SNOW WILL CONTINUE THROUGH THE AFTERNOON ALONG WITH ACCUMULATIONS OF 3 TO 4 INCHES AT 9000 FEET ALONG WITH UP TO 6 TO 7 INCHES AT 10000 FEET. ISOLATED EMBEDDED THUNDERSTORMS ARE EXPECTED THROUGHOUT THE DAY WHICH COULD CAUSE LOCALLY HIGHER AMOUNTS OF SNOWFALL. PRECAUTIONARY/PREPAREDNESS ACTIONS... A WINTER WEATHER ADVISORY FOR SNOW MEANS THAT PERIODS OF SNOW WILL CAUSE PRIMARILY TRAVEL DIFFICULTIES. BE PREPARED FOR SNOW COVERED ROADS AND LIMITED VISIBILITIES WHILE DRIVING OVER GRANITE AND POWDER RIVER PASSES TODAY...AND USE CAUTION WHILE DRIVING. CAMPERS AND HIKERS SHOULD PREPARE FOR DRAMATICALLY COLDER AND WET WEATHER TODAY. && $$ LIPSON
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Great weather. If only the south Texas could have a taste of this. I like the claim that weather isn’ climate. Don’t they both use the same data? ?
I don’t care if it’s weather, not climate. I hope someone like Drudge highlights these every time they happen. Just because it aggravates every two bit AGW zealot out there. If there is a God he is channeling Nelson Muntz with each occurrence.
[ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_4bLNM0axE ]
REPLY: Channeling Nelson is the wrong way to view this. At WUWT I don’t report “every” weather event, but I do report the odd ones that are seasonal climatic outliers, Dr. Pielke agrees. Just as I did for years on television, you’ll very likely see this same report on TV stations and in newspapers in Wyoming and Colorado because it will affect I-90 and it is unusual. – Anthony
Pike’s Peak got snow two weeks ago. My family has camped at Sylvan Lake, outside of Eagle, CO (near Vail), and were told by the rangers that there is no “last frost” as they regularly get snow through the summer. Nothing unusual for the Rockies, as far as I understand, to get snow throughout the year. Maybe it’s the intensity that Pielke Sr. is referring to as unusual?
Mark
Above 9000 ft . Unusual for Aug. , but probably not unheard of . Having lived at 6000 ft. in Idaho for several years , I can say that July and August were the only months that I never saw snowfall .
This is bad! When did Wyoming start having summers?
@James Baldwin m. : you’re right, the only two seasons are winter and road work.
The NWS Missoula office is forecasting snow above 8300′ in the Bitterroot Mts of Montana today and tonight. Probably happening right now, as it just started raining in Missoula. Not really that unusual, though.
Mike M. (11:01:45) : With regard to Anthony’s reply-ordinarily I would say it is worth highlighting weather events just to show that weather is highly variable AGW or not-a message in itself-but there is no problem-namely that any and all weather will just be blamed on AGW.
It did get down to 35-39 degrees in the Big Horn Mountains this morning at around 8500 feet. Kudos to NWS Riverton for putting this out because there is a lot of hiking in those mountains this time of the year.
Heh. I didn’t say it was the right way to look at these things, just the most enjoyable. I’m thinking of a particularly churlish poster at DotEarth who recently dismissed my reference to Richard Lindzen because Lindzen is “just a meteorologist.”
Mark T (11:08:50) :
Pike’s Peak got snow two weeks ago.
~~~~
Pike’s Peak is over 14,400 ft high. Most of the Rockies are under 10,000ft, as is the area of the unseasonal snow-forcast at 9,000ft.
Time to wax up the old boards.
I live here.
This is the THIRD snow since late July.
I have seen snow on July 4th.
I have seen snow on Labor Day.
But these past two weeks are mid-summer.
Even in Wyoming.
An 88 year-old rancher has said that she has never seen a summer like this.
I sure haven’t.
How can I post photos that I will be taking?
REPLY: Post them to flickr or some other free photo sharing service and then put the URL’s in the comments here – Anthony
Following on from John Egan (12:20:13) :
I am in the Denver area. Even though it has been somewhat ridgey over the West, I have noticed that the 500 mb thicknesses seem to be lower than most summers. Here in Denver, it seem be rarely more than 582 dm, with dips below 570 dm when a trough pushes through. I have been here in Colorado for 15 years & I cant ever remember seeing sub-570 thicknesses in mid-summer. Of course, in Wyoming, being further north, thicknesses have been even less, thus the multiple summer snows with systems moving through. Even over AZ, there have been multiple periods where it is around 585 +/-. In past years, it seems like it was common to see values near or over 600 dm. What’s maybe most interesting is the low thickness values despite being close to the mean summer ridge, with the mean summer trough over the Great Lakes.
Has anyone else noticed this thickness anomaly – or is it just in my mind? Any good websites to analyze this further?
We saw 2 inches of snow on the ground in the Rockies, at about 7,000 feet just last week, just west of Wisdom, MT. Not sure what the excitement is about snow at 9,000 feet in the Big Horns. August has been quite cool – so far – but here in the Inland NW but we are to be back in the 90s (deg F) next week.
Last year at this time we also had a snowstorm in the Bighorns. According to the people who have lived here more than 30 years, this summer has been more like the summers of the 70’s rather than recent years. I remember snowstorms in the Bighorns in July and August during the early 70’s. “Unusual” depends upon the time frame one is talking about.
I believe it snowed in California last weekend. It is 60 here in Utah today (sorry Texas).
It’s a pretty reasonable summer in North Texas but I’d love to have some nights in the 60s….south Texas is a different story. Maybe Ana or the one behind it can bring some water to the valley and then north.
It already has a name – TS Bill.
“If there is a God he is channeling Nelson Muntz with each occurrence.”
Apologies for being obtuse, but what does “channeling” mean? Mrs Clinton used the word “channeling” in the Congo about her husband. As a speaker of the Queen’s English, I have no idea what Mrs Clinton or Mike M mean.
Thank you in anticipation.
Stoic
ked5 (11:43:24) :
Pike’s Peak is over 14,400 ft high.
No kidding. It’s 14110 feet, actually, but that’s only the peak – the mountain doesn’t all sit that high, you know. The snow went down well below treeline which is around 11000 feet on the eastern slope. If you had read the rest of my post you would have noticed I also mentioned Sylvan Lake regularly gets snow through the summer and it’s only at 8500 feet.
Try to post something a little less insulting and a little more intelligent next time.
Mark
Wikipedia has updated Pike’s Peak to 14115 but they have not changed the sign at the peak yet. Circa 2007
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:PikesPeaksign.jpg
Same sign as last time I was up there.
Mark
Stoic (15:04:22) – ” Channelling” was an idiotic fad in the U.S. some time ago . It seems that those who were cosmically aware could “channel” , or , assume the persona of other persons , either living or dead and allow them to speak through them . Nelson Miutz is a character on “The Simpsons” who mocks everything with a HA HA .
Cooke City, Montana, at 7600 feet elevation, is expecting freezing drizzle and possibly record low temperatures: http://weather.yahoo.com/forecast/USMT0076_f.html
Snow, though, would not be at all unusual in the high Beartooths, even in the summer.
Funny you should mention mountain cold, we were on vacation in Pogosa Springs early this month and our car thermometer said 37 degrees in their downtown area a little after 6 on the way home and 1 degree lower just east of the town.
I thought lows in the 40’s would be a bit more common which they were.
The Weather Channel did talk about these snowstroms yesterday …. But, of course, never linked them to Global Warming as they “should have”.
If, on the other hand, we had been facing warm areas, hot spots in the same places? Would the “hot weather” have been likewise “not labbelled” as a symptom of global warming? /sarcasm
—
On a technical note to the assembled weatherpeople reading, are these “late summer” snowfalls (belonging to the past winter of 2008-2009), or early winter snowstorms (belonging to the upcoming winter 2010)?