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SUMMIT COUNTY — National Weather Service observer Rick Bly said 22.9 inches of snow piled up in downtown Breckenridge during October, getting the weather year off to a good start.
Water managers and weather officials tally statistics beginning Oct. 1, and Bly said that this October was the sixth-wettest since 1893, when the record-keeping began.
The snowfall total was 85 percent above the historic average 12.3 inches. The snow melted down to 2.3 inches of water, about 77 percent above average.
“I looked through my records to see if there are any patterns,” Bly said, hoping to divine the winter ahead. “When you look at the 10 snowiest Octobers since 1893, four of the winters that followed were above average, five were below, and one was average.”
In other words, this month's precipitation is not a solid indicator of the weather to come.
Even more snow fell on the Front Range, where it quickly melted and topped off reservoirs in Denver Water's system. Enough moisture was added to the system that Denver Water officials aren't sure whether they'll even turn on the Roberts Tunnel this winter. At last word, no final decision had been made, but a resource manager with Denver Water said that, because of the impending winter, they have to make the call soon.
Looking ahead, November on average brings about 20.9 inches of snow (1.5 inches of water. Bly said it's the fourth-driest month, but there can be huge departures from average. The snowiest November ever was 1898, with 59.2 inches, the driest ever in 1904, with just two inches.
Winter snowfall could be influenced by a strengthening El Niño, when warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific tend to shift the flow of storms into the West Coast.
A month ago, the strength of this year's El Niño was in question, but climate expert Klaus Wolter recently told water managers in California that the pattern is now “firing on all cylinders.”
Often, El Niño brings wet weather to California and to the desert Southwest. But the effects of the pattern are not very clear in northern and central Colorado. As a result, Wolter's winter outlook is calling for about even chances of above- or below-normal precipitation for the local mountains.
At Summit County's second National Weather Service station, October precipitation was below normal. At the Dillon site, observers tallied only 5.5 (.84 inches of precipitation) inches of snow. the historic average is 7.7 inches (1.07 inches).
The average maximum temperature reading for the month, 47 degrees, was a full 8.3 degrees lower than the historic average, based on records going back to 1909. The average monthly low was 19.2 degrees, slightly below the average 20 degree reading.
Daytime temperatures climbed into the sixties only a handful of days. Oct. 19 was the warmest day, at 64 degrees.
Lows dropped below freezing every single night except Oct. 15. The coldest reading for the month was Oct. 26, at minus 2 degrees.
Water managers and weather officials tally statistics beginning Oct. 1, and Bly said that this October was the sixth-wettest since 1893, when the record-keeping began.
The snowfall total was 85 percent above the historic average 12.3 inches. The snow melted down to 2.3 inches of water, about 77 percent above average.
“I looked through my records to see if there are any patterns,” Bly said, hoping to divine the winter ahead. “When you look at the 10 snowiest Octobers since 1893, four of the winters that followed were above average, five were below, and one was average.”
In other words, this month's precipitation is not a solid indicator of the weather to come.
Even more snow fell on the Front Range, where it quickly melted and topped off reservoirs in Denver Water's system. Enough moisture was added to the system that Denver Water officials aren't sure whether they'll even turn on the Roberts Tunnel this winter. At last word, no final decision had been made, but a resource manager with Denver Water said that, because of the impending winter, they have to make the call soon.
Looking ahead, November on average brings about 20.9 inches of snow (1.5 inches of water. Bly said it's the fourth-driest month, but there can be huge departures from average. The snowiest November ever was 1898, with 59.2 inches, the driest ever in 1904, with just two inches.
Winter snowfall could be influenced by a strengthening El Niño, when warmer-than-average sea surface temperatures in the eastern Pacific tend to shift the flow of storms into the West Coast.
A month ago, the strength of this year's El Niño was in question, but climate expert Klaus Wolter recently told water managers in California that the pattern is now “firing on all cylinders.”
Often, El Niño brings wet weather to California and to the desert Southwest. But the effects of the pattern are not very clear in northern and central Colorado. As a result, Wolter's winter outlook is calling for about even chances of above- or below-normal precipitation for the local mountains.
At Summit County's second National Weather Service station, October precipitation was below normal. At the Dillon site, observers tallied only 5.5 (.84 inches of precipitation) inches of snow. the historic average is 7.7 inches (1.07 inches).
The average maximum temperature reading for the month, 47 degrees, was a full 8.3 degrees lower than the historic average, based on records going back to 1909. The average monthly low was 19.2 degrees, slightly below the average 20 degree reading.
Daytime temperatures climbed into the sixties only a handful of days. Oct. 19 was the warmest day, at 64 degrees.
Lows dropped below freezing every single night except Oct. 15. The coldest reading for the month was Oct. 26, at minus 2 degrees.
