The Warm, Dry Winter That Never Arrived--Colorado's Second Wettest Winter Ever, Scientists Baffled

Winter precipitation was much above average from the Midwest to parts of the West, notably Kansas, Colorado and Utah. Although moderate-to-strong La Niña conditions were present in the equatorial Pacific the winter was unique for the above average rain and snowfall in the Southwest, where La Niña typically brings drier-than-average conditions--NOAA

Nothing typical about the latest regional and statewide (Colorado) snowpack levels:




From The Pueblo Chieftain:

It appears the warm, dry winter never arrived.

A warm, dry spring still is being forecast by the Climate Prediction Center of the National Weather Service, but that shouldn’t hamper the valley’s water supply, as reservoir storage continues to increase, streams run high and water managers make room for an expected flood of imported water.

Snowpack in the Arkansas Basin is at record levels through mid-March, with several feet of snow with high water content at nearly all sites. Snowpack was at 159 percent of average in the basin as of Friday, and running ahead of any previously recorded years. Already, snowpack is far above the maximum average accumulation as well.

Conditions were similar in the San Luis Valley, where officials are concerned about spring flooding and snowpack is rated at 154 percent of average.

Statewide, snowpack was 126 percent of average.

So, um, how could this be?

From NOAA:

Winter precipitation was much above average from the Midwest to parts of the West, notably Kansas, Colorado and Utah. Although moderate-to-strong La Niña conditions were present in the equatorial Pacific the winter was unique for the above average rain and snowfall in the Southwest, where La Niña typically brings drier-than-average conditions.

During January alone, 170 inches of snow fell at the Alta ski area near Salt Lake City, Utah, more than twice the normal amount for the month, eclipsing the previous record of 168 inches that fell in 1967. At the end of February, seasonal precipitation for the 2008 Water Year, which began on October 1, 2007, was well above average over much of the West.

Mountain snowpack exceeded 150 percent of average in large parts of Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, and Oregon at the end of February. Spring run-off from the above average snowpack in the West is expected to be beneficial in drought plagued areas.
Record February precipitation in the Northeast helped make the winter the fifth wettest on record for the region. New York had its wettest winter, while Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Vermont, and Colorado to the West, had their second wettest.

Snowfall was above normal in northern New England, where some locations posted all-time record winter snow totals. Concord, N.H., received 100.1 inches, which was 22.1 inches above the previous record set during the winter of 1886-87. Burlington, Vt., received 103.2 inches, which was 6.3 inches above the previous record set during the winter of 1970-71.

Wait, there's more--Steamboat Springs hitting an all-time record for snowfall in a season before the middle of March, and more on Colorado's impressive snowpack.

How impressive? Second. Wettest. Winter. Ever.

But how do record precipiation figures look visually?

Glad you asked:


Way, way above average in more than half the states


Not especially toasty anywhere this winter

From early February, when "climate experts" admitted they were way, way off base:

Dry-winter forecasts were flat wrong this year for much of Colorado and the Southwest, and weather experts say they're struggling to understand why the snow just keeps falling.

Some forecasters blame climate change, and others point to the simple vicissitudes of weather. Regardless, almost everyone called for a dry-to-normal winter in Colorado and the Southwest — but today, the state's mountains are piled so thick with snow that state reservoirs could fill and floods could be widespread this spring.

"The polar jet stream has been on steroids. We don't understand this. It's pushing our limits, and it's humbling," said Klaus Wolter, a meteorologist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the University of Colorado at Boulder.

Wolter, however, remained defiant--"I'm sticking with my forecast, except that I acknowledge I have some egg on my face."

Try an omelette.

Gateway Pundit has maintained an extensive and excellent archive of similar global cold weather-related phenomena in a series aptly titled--"Brrrr!"

Colorado Snowpack April Update

For Winter Year 2007-2008 (in black) on April 12 when the majority of Colorado's ski resorts closed, compared to the past three winters and the 30 year average (in red):



More proof the MSM can't get the story straight--two stories from 9NEWS reporting on recent concerns about flooding following a bountiful, near-record winter snowfall season, produced within 7 hours of each other on Monday. The first indicates the flooding concerns have abated--and the headline agrees--"Climatologist: Dry spell cuts flood threat from Colo. snow melt" (published at approximately 10 AM):

A Colorado weather expert says several weeks of dry weather have reduced the risk of flooding from Colorado's deep mountain snows.

State Climatologist Nolan Doesken said Monday the deep snow is a cause for concern but the threat has decreased.

Doesken says Colorado's snow usually melts off gradually as warm temperatures work their way up to high elevation, reducing the chance of floods.

Major flooding becomes more of a threat when snow melts quickly.

Doesken says not all of Colorado has benefited from deep snow.

Much of the Eastern Plains have been dry since last summer.

He says recent storms have reduced the threat of drought but the area still needs spring storms to keep from drying out again.

Here is the second story, not an update, but a rehash of comments from the same State Climatologist, Nolan Doesken (at around 5 PM). Note the wide difference in tone, especially the headline--"Higher than normal snowpack raising risk for flooding":

Snowpack at higher elevations is at levels researchers have not seen in a decade.

"Basin wide, the snowpack is 110 percent to 130 percent than average. There is a concern for flooding because it's been years since we've had this much of a snowpack where the snow is deep at high elevations, all the way from northern New Mexico to the Colorado/Wyoming border," said Colorado climatologist and Colorado State University researcher Nolan Doesken.

Doesken says on a scale of one to 10, the risk of flooding in river basins like the San Juan, Rio Grande and Gunnison basins is "a five or six." So far, spring temperatures have been relatively cool, said Doesken. Depending on the precipitation in the coming weeks, Doesken says the risk of flooding may be increased even further.

"There's still plenty of time, lots of different ways the snowmelt could occur, but when there's a lot of snow and when spring has been cool, that does increase the chances of flooding later on," said Doesken.

Snow at elevations 10,000 feet and above usually begins to melt in May and continues on through June. Doesken says if there are many consecutive days of warm temperatures, then flooding is more likely, but he emphasized that Colorado has historically had a "well-behaved" snowmelt.

Shortly after it became clear that Colorado's snowpack would be well above average--in record setting territory perhaps as second wettest in 113 years--the local MSM started stoking the "imminent flooding" story, no doubt trying to bring the focus back on to climate change and global warming causing all the snow to melt rapidly.

Apparently someone at 9NEWS didn't get the memo. The first story appears to have the basic theme of the climatologist right--there is still a chance that a rapid warm-up will cause some minor flooding concerns, but that risk diminishes over time as normal melting occurs. The second story buries the climatologist's estimate of "a five or six" with fearmongering headlines about the raised risk of flooding.

At least get the story straight, 9NEWS. It was the same climatologist and interview, fer Chrissakes!

Snow In Colorado Exceeds Early Season Forecast For Second Straight Year

"I'm sticking with my forecast, except that I acknowledge I have some egg on my face"--Klaus Wolter, meteorologist affiliated with the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.


Klaus Wolter, egg on his face

More like completely defied the weather forecasters' and climatologists' prognostications that called for a dry, warm winter:

It wasn't supposed to be this way.

The National Weather Service's "probability forecast" called for a drier than normal winter in southwestern Colorado. But as meteorologist Aldis Strautins of the National Weather Service in Grand Junction explains, probability is not cast in stone.

"When you're talking about climate and probability forecasts, saying that the probability is a little higher that it's going to be drier doesn't mean it still couldn't be a wet year. That's what's happened so far. You have a better chance of drier weather, but it's still possible you can get these other events. And the season's not through."

Of course, this isn't the first time that seasonal projections failed to adequately describe what would happen. Just remember last season's blizzard, which came on the heels of a similar three-month projection that also called for dry weather and little precipitation.

What was the prediction last November (11-27-07 to be exact)?

Mountain snowpacks are thin statewide — a quarter as deep as normal in southwestern Colorado — and weather forecasters are predicting a relatively warm, dry winter for most of the state.

The Gunnison River Basin reported snowpack levels 29 percent of normal Monday, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture; and the South Platte River Basin was at 57 percent of normal.

The next few months do not look a whole lot better.

"Oh, it's dry and grim," said Klaus Wolter, a meteorology researcher with the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in Boulder.
. . .
Wolter said this winter may disappoint those who love winter storms. "Everything seems to be shifted north this year," he said.

That's despite the strong La Niña weather system that has set up in the Pacific Ocean. La Niñas usually mean dry falls and springs and snowier-than-average winters in the mountains.

La Niñas occur when temperatures in the equatorial Pacific Ocean are lower than normal. That affects weather patterns around the globe and often brings extra moisture to Colorado in December or January.

"I don't see that happening this year," Wolter said. "The storm tracks are shifted north," along with the jet stream.

Ken Reeves, a senior meteorologist and director of forecasting for AccuWeather Inc., agreed with Wolter.

"There's going to be a tremendous amount of moisture firehosed up into the Pacific Northwest, and the question is, will any of that end up in Colorado's central mountains?"

"Right now, I think it probably won't get much closer than Utah, western Wyoming," Reeves said. "It is a possibility, but I don't see a spout of storms piling up snow there this year."
. . .
"I am very concerned that Colorado, which is essentially drought-free on the national drought monitor, might see regions of drought develop by spring," Wolter said.

Whoops!

In fact, getting the weather gurus to admit their models are flawed or that their forecasts are off is incredibly difficult, even in the face of countervailing evidence:

Forecasters are holding to their predictions of a dry winter for Colorado despite blasts of snow that have continued into mid-January and set snowpack records in the southwestern mountains.

Admitting that the string of major storms over the past six weeks caught him off guard, one top federal forecaster nonetheless said a strong La Nina effect is likely to keep the state mostly dry through March.

"I'm sticking with my forecast, except that I acknowledge I have some egg on my face," said Klaus Wolter, a meteorologist affiliated with the University of Colorado and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Wolter said his prediction applied to the January-March period, not to December - a point he said he didn't make clear enough in media interviews. Even so, he said the string of big, wet storms running through the state late last year was historic.

"I certainly can't remember in 20 years of living here anything like that," he said. "I think we should count our blessings. We got lucky."

That "moisture pipeline," Wolter said, was fueled by the so-called Pineapple Express, a weather system with its origins near the Hawaiian tropics. But, he added, it is bound to dry up.

"The writing is on the wall," he said.

That was a month ago--mid-January.

The writing is on the wall--but the meteorologists/climatologists don't seem capable of reading it.

Local snowpack numbers are at impressive levels. More amazement:

7News Chief Meteorologist Mike Nelson says in his 17 years here in Colorado, he cannot remember a more prolific snow season in the high country as they are seeing this season.

2007-2008 Colorado Snowpack Update; Steamboat Set To Break Season Record Snowfall

How 2008 (in black) fares against the trend lines from the previous three years, as well as the average:



And from a few days ago, a look at snowpack across the West:



More snow news--Steamboat is about to break its season record, with more than a month of good snow season left:

The Steamboat ski area was less than a foot away from setting its all-time record for inches in a season, and could break the record any hour now.

The city of Steamboat Springs is expecting 10 to 14 inches of snow today, National Weather Service meteorologist Ken Ludington said. "It looks good, if you really want to break that record," Ludington told the Steamboat Pilot newspaper.

Steamboat's all-time record is 447.75 inches, set in 1996-97, said Heidi Thomsen, a spokeswoman for Steamboat Ski and Resort Corp.

As of Thursday, Steamboat had 438 inches of snow — that's 36 1/2 feet of the white stuff. By midafternoon the resort was reporting 7 inches of new snow in the past day.

Despite Global Warming, North America Has Most Snow Cover Since 1966

And not just here, but around the Northern Hemisphere:

Snow cover over North America and much of Siberia, Mongolia and China is greater than at any time since 1966.

The U.S. National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) reported that many American cities and towns suffered record cold temperatures in January and early February. According to the NCDC, the average temperature in January "was -0.3 F cooler than the 1901-2000 (20th century) average."

China is surviving its most brutal winter in a century. Temperatures in the normally balmy south were so low for so long that some middle-sized cities went days and even weeks without electricity because once power lines had toppled it was too cold or too icy to repair them.

There have been so many snow and ice storms in Ontario and Quebec in the past two months that the real estate market has felt the pinch as home buyers have stayed home rather than venturing out looking for new houses.

In just the first two weeks of February, Toronto received 70 cm of snow, smashing the record of 66.6 cm for the entire month set back in the pre-SUV, pre-Kyoto, pre-carbon footprint days of 1950.

More scientists are doubting that "consensus" Al Gore and other global warmongers have repeatedly cited as "evidence" of anthropogenic climate change:

And it's not just anecdotal evidence that is piling up against the climate-change dogma.

According to Robert Toggweiler of the Geophysical Fluid Dynamics Laboratory at Princeton University and Joellen Russell, assistant professor of biogeochemical dynamics at the University of Arizona -- two prominent climate modellers -- the computer models that show polar ice-melt cooling the oceans, stopping the circulation of warm equatorial water to northern latitudes and triggering another Ice Age (a la the movie The Day After Tomorrow) are all wrong.
. . .
Last month, Oleg Sorokhtin, a fellow of the Russian Academy of Natural Sciences, shrugged off manmade climate change as "a drop in the bucket." Showing that solar activity has entered an inactive phase, Prof. Sorokhtin advised people to "stock up on fur coats."

He is not alone. Kenneth Tapping of our own National Research Council, who oversees a giant radio telescope focused on the sun, is convinced we are in for a long period of severely cold weather if sunspot activity does not pick up soon.

The last time the sun was this inactive, Earth suffered the Little Ice Age that lasted about five centuries and ended in 1850. Crops failed through killer frosts and drought. Famine, plague and war were widespread. Harbours froze, so did rivers, and trade ceased.

Gateway Pundit has been relentless in covering the brutal 2007-2008 winter across the globe, with a roundup of "climate change" of the cooler kind.

Colorado's impressive snowpack totals continue to befuddle the "experts" who predicted a dry winter.

Related: measuring "the greenness of politicians by how many federal laws they impose on the American people".

DNC "Green" Plan Unveiled; Climate Change Takes Another Hit

Drunkablog has an extensive roundup with all the necessary links--to the carbon footprint calculator, carbon advisor, and, of course, "tips."

New evidence doesn't support global warming or climate change fearmongering--Gateway Pundit has latest:

Satellite measurements available since 1979 show no warming in the southern hemisphere and the trend in the northern hemisphere appears to have waned since 2001.

Plus, Green Bay has record snowfall, there's so much snow in Quebec it has spurred "snow rage"--complete with guns and fists, and NOAA says that this was the coolest winter for the US and the world since 2001.

Then there's the snowpack--Colorado is doing quite well, as is the entire West, with almost all areas above 90% (green, blues, and purple--click to enlarge):

Denver Snow Cover Reaches Record Books For Second Straight Year

Although there was no mention of it until it had passed (all the global warmening that had to be covered, aside from record Christmas Day snowfall), Denver saw 32 consecutive days of snow cover for the second straight year, pushing into the top 10 once again:

Only a trace of snow was measured in Denver Wednesday, ending a 32-day streak with an inch or more of snow on the ground.

December's above average snowfall and cold temperatures kept measureable snow on the ground at the old Stapleton Airport for over a month straight. The streak of snow-covered days was long enough to secure 10th place for consecutive days of snow cover in Denver. At least an inch of snow was measured on the ground in Denver from December 8, 2007 to January 8, 2008.

Every morning observers at the old Stapleton Airport officially measure the amount of snow cover. In an area free of obstructions like trees and buildings, several measurements are taken and averaged to account for melting and drifting. If the average is an inch or greater, it is added to the count. Less than an inch is recorded as a trace amount.

The Denver snow-cover record was set at 63 days between November 26, 1983 and January 27, 1984. Last winter recorded a second-place finish with a 61 day stretch between December 21, 2006 and February 19, 2007.

This year, the 24 days in December and 8 days in January with snow cover came close to a ninth place finish. One more day would have tied the 33 day mark set in 1919.

This comes on top of the news that actually has been covered since late November worries pushed the state's global warming panickers into overdrive following a warm, dry month--the state's snowpack is now uniformly over 100% of the 30-year average in all 8 river basins, with two above 150%, and the state average of 127% overall.

Global warm-mongers routinely cherry-pick evidence to support their claims, and even go so far as to claim that all weather, even unseen-in-a-century snowfall in Baghdad is also evidence of global warming.

For the past two years, early season predictions for Denver and Colorado as a whole have not come to fruition. Before 2006's twin blizzards and subsequent months of frequent snow and cold, Denver was supposed to have three months--December through February--of above average temperatures and little snowfall. Oops.

Same thing has occurred this year. Heavy snowfall over the southwest portion of the state has necessitated Colorado's Division of Wildlife to bail out elk and deer herds without winter forage due to snow cover above 50 inches.

Once again, it is difficult to reconcile reality with global warming conspiracy theories (where all evidence is evidence of climate change, etc.) and the inability to make believable predictions that are correct not just decades or years but just months and days away. There is a reason people poke fun at meteorologists' predictive power (the only job to be correct less than half the time and still be employed!), based as it is on complex computer models that certainly give more advance warning, but can not definitively predict a storm's path or strength. Nature still remains beyond human beings' arrogant attempt to predict or control, making frivolous "doomsday" assertions of climate change catastrophe that much more unpalatable to anyone with a skeptical frame of mind.

The only thing certain about climate is its uncertainty, and our inability to do much about it.

XDA, another Colorado blog, has been following the science of climate change as well.

Thursday Morning Linkage

First the bias:

After years of Colorado's MSM going on and on about the lingering effects of the drought from 2002, Colorado finally has a year where each basin is above 100%, and the overall snowpack is approximately 130% of the 30 year average. The story? The snow is going to melt (I know, shocking), and that means spring flooding! Nothing like a little MSM sensationalism.

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Or perhaps the state's economy. The headline? "Colorado unemployment inches up to 4.2 percent in January." The story? Much, much different. The numbers:

Colorado's unemployment rate rose two-tenths of a percentage point to 4.2 percent in January as the labor market weakened slightly, state labor officials said Tuesday.

The number of Coloradans with jobs rose by 14,500 while the number of unemployed rose by 7,100, the state Department of Labor and Employment said. [a net gain of 7,400 jobs]

Total employment in January was 74,000 higher than a year earlier, but about 116,000 couldn't find work, up from about 104,000 a year ago.

"Colorado continues to display modest employment gains in the face of a national economy seemingly on the verge of contraction," said Don Mares, the department director.

The spin is clear--the rest of the country as a whole is not fairing as well, but Colorado is showing only "modest" gains. How about resiliency or, you know, strength?

But that isn't the whole story. Seems the estimated unemployment increases of the final four months of last year were nonexistent, and had to be revised:

The department also said its revised report on 2007 largely erased large increases in unemployment originally reported late last year.

After revision, adjusted unemployment rates stayed essentially flat the final four months of the year.

The department originally reported increases of one-tenth of a percentage point in September and four-tenths in both November and December.

The October rate had showed a decline of two-tenths of a percentage point.

Mares said the state's major labor indicators were mostly positive in 2007, with an average annual jobless rate of 3.8 percent, down from 4.3 percent in 2006.

The 2007 average was the lowest since 2.7 percent in 2000.

Total employment grew by 65,700 last year while the average number of unemployed residents dropped by 11,600.

Compared to the downturn a few years ago following the tech bust and post 9/11 effects, and considering the current oil, currency, and stock market uncertainty, Colorado looks to be doing quite well. Not excellent, but certainly better than a story leading with the unemployment rise (which could also be revised) or a "mostly positive, modest" description.

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This one's a few days old, but it looks like the state's greenies and global warmenists are enjoying their time in the sun with Colorado's Democratic controlled House, Senate, and Governorship:

These are happy times for the environmental movement under the dome.

As the legislative session begins its second half this week, every one of the the dozen bills the groups have identified this year as priorities is still on the road to passing.

The bills touch areas of state policy from water use to power generation to wildlife protection. Two are awaiting the signature of the governor, who, by the way, doesn't seem to go a day without mentioning the "new energy economy." That phrase was at least partially created by the environmental community.

Both chambers of the legislature also have "pro-conservation majorities," as the environmentalists put it.

"There are many Democratic constituencies that have influence under the dome," said political analyst Eric Sondermann. "But my perception is that the environmental constituency is first among equals."

Nothing like a little payback from Gov. Ritter.

Has Colorado gone green, imbibing from Al Gore's global warming climate change kool-aid sippy-cup:

Environmental lobbyists say that, after years of getting their bills killed in Republican legislatures, their ideas have gained wider appeal in a world of rising gas prices and greater acknowledgment of climate change. They credit voters for bringing to power the current crop of conservation-minded lawmakers — mostly Democrats but also several environment-friendly Republicans — who in turn have looked favorably upon the environmental agenda.

"It really has been a pretty incredible shift," said Carrie Doyle, the executive director of Colorado Conservation Voters. "I think what's leading this shift are voters' concerns."

Environmental leaders say they also have become more politically skilled in recent years. They work to build coalitions more often, with farmers, ranchers, hunters, fishermen, local elected officials, business owners — anybody who might have an interest in land or water.

They shoot more for incremental change. And they are more willing to compromise on issues to see at least part of their goals enacted.

Incremental change? Translation--back door, Trojan horse approach. Death by a 1000 cuts. Same thing.

There is a cost to all this environmental correctness, as Rep. Cory Gardner, R-Yuma, points out, "All of us want to protect the air and the water and the land," Gardner said. "We just don't want to sell Coloradans down the river to get there."

Come on Rep. Gardner. The science is settled. Don't be a big business shilling climate change heretic!

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In other news:

In another follow-up to last December's church shootings, Colorado Springs Police release a 450 page report that includes Matthew Murray's angry letter to God.

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Democrat State Sen. Chris Romer's I-70 plan, updated with citizen input includes tolls, trucking restrictions, lane reversal, and trip preregistration. Yep, that'll work. Apparently, the bill is not being so well-received, even by members of his own party.