Whither the weather?

As I'm sure I've mentioned on the blog before, Tom and I have been baffled by the seeming incompetence of meteorologists reporting for southern Colorado. We joke that when they predict snow it's a pretty good indicator that the day will be dry. And if we ever do get snow, no one saw it coming.

A few recent bouts of weather have started to make it clearer to us why weather reporting is so unreliable in this area.

(1) Extremely localized weather patterns. A couple of weeks ago the national news was forecasting a major snowstorm for the Rockies. We started getting all the emails from friends and family asking if we were housebound. But in fact, while Denver did get upwards of a foot of snow, and my colleagues on the far northern edge of town got a good 12 inches, and my colleagues just northeast of downtown got six inches, our neighborhood was dry. Bone dry. We drove five miles with the girls the next day to do an errand, and we could see cars coming from the other direction with snow-covered roofs, while we hadn't so much as swept a dusting off. The line across the plain between snow and no-snow was stark.

A few days later I was flying back into the Springs from a job interview. As were were making our final descent I glanced out the window for the first time in awhile and was excited to see everything covered in deep, white snow. There had been a storm while I was gone! But three minutes later, when we landed some XX? miles to the south, the landscape was brown, no snow in sight.

(2) Fast-moving weather systems. Tuesday of this week it was in the 30s and low 40s during the day, where it has been much of the winter. Tuesday evening wind began to gust, blowing in a new system. Wednesday it was 65 degrees and sunny but very windy.

As we were driving home from Ash Wednesday services at 9 pm, we passed a bank clock reading 57 degrees.

At midnight when I went to bed I looked out the window and admired all the stars in the sky, wondering if the fierce wind would take out any of our trees.

At 2:30 am (I later learned), when my colleague went to bed, she too admired the stars and listened to the wind.

At 5 am (I later learned), when my student went to bed, the wind had died down but the ground was clear as he walked home. (I did not ask where he was walking home from.)

At  6am, the robo-call came in that Edith's school was on two-hour delay. I looked out the window and saw about two inches of standing snow. I went back to bed.

At 7am, as I got out of the shower, Tom told me there had been another robo-call and Edith's school was closed entirely. There were now 3 or 4 inches of standing snow and more still coming down.

At 8am, as I helped the girls get their breakfast and prepared to shovel the driveway and head to work, the sun burst out.

At 8:30am, as I got into the car and headed off into the bright sunshine, the car thermometer read 36 degrees, and the roads were slushy.

By the time I got downtown 15 minutes later, the car thermometer said 26 degrees, though snow was still evaporating off hard surfaces.

Maybe I'll cut the meteorologists a bit of slack.