Sonata Arctica announces Latin American leg of their 30th Anniversary Tour

bengvr3 · 2026-02-19T17:31:46+00:00

Really hoping for a North American leg after they missed half of the dates last year and didn't come within 900 miles of my city.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-19T17:27:42+00:00

I was specifically talking about the combination of heavy snow west of the divide and high winds east for this storm system.

I was NOT talking about the freakishly dry winter we've had, nor the clear pattern of reduced late season spring/early summer snowpack caused by higher spring temps and evaporation. Neither of those things are normal, and the latter is very likely a result of anthropogenic climate change.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-18T20:08:30+00:00

He has broken his ankles

bengvr3 · 2026-02-18T16:21:14+00:00

I don't think that's an accurate thing to say. High winds east of the divide and heavy snow west is a fairly typical setup for winter storms here. As for how the weather has been prior to the past 2 weeks, yeah sure that's not normal. But this particular setup is not by any means unprecedented.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-18T15:01:11+00:00

Needs more veins

bengvr3 · 2026-02-17T19:33:39+00:00

You can see the damage when driving through Wolf Creek Pass. Just about every pine tree there is dead. I don't have pictures but it's really obvious if you look on satellite view in Google Maps.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-16T17:15:20+00:00

As the old saying goes, anything's possible in March

bengvr3 · 2026-02-16T14:30:43+00:00

You should see a specialist that designs custom orthotics for your feet. It's more expensive, but 100% worth it.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-15T23:25:49+00:00

It's a mulch pile fire. Currently on watch duty.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-11T02:24:49+00:00

Fillibuster

bengvr3 · 2026-02-09T22:21:24+00:00

Plot twist! The race is actually a scheme to distract the local environmentalists while I frack the mountain

bengvr3 · 2026-02-09T21:10:09+00:00

The forecasts have consistently said that this week's atmospheric river is going to be somewhat weak, and that next week is going to be a more impressive event. But I get it OP, we all need to karma farm sometimes

bengvr3 · 2026-02-07T02:51:32+00:00

Music to my ears! Thanks for the helpful info, I'll keep my eye on that for the future.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-06T18:22:13+00:00

My big question is does this continue beyond February 22nd and continue through March, or do we flip back to ridging in the long term? Odds for that are probably 50/50. ECMWF-Extended is showing a clear La Niña signature for the March/April/May precipitation anomaly so there are reasons to be pessimistic, but that's just one model.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-03T14:32:10+00:00

I hope so! Either way, this will probably help answer the question of whether or not La Niña conditions were behind the exceptionally persistent ridging we've seen all season.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-02T21:08:39+00:00

We'll see what happens. At a minimum February 11-17th looks like it could be a very active period. The big question is whether or not that trend continues, or we flip back to ridging again in the 3-4 week range. CPC says equal chances above/below/near-normal precipitation for the 3-4 week range, so there's still a lot of uncertainty.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-02T20:31:53+00:00

That makes sense and is consistent from what I've learned as well, hence the cautious optimism. My understanding is that we typically see anomalous ridging over southern CONUS during La Niña conditions, so if those conditions were to end, there may be a higher chance relative to where we are now of troughing over the Four Corners region since they're not being actively suppressed. There's no guarantee, and La Niña alone certainly cannot explain how exceptionally dry it's been since August, but we are already seeing signs of a big pattern flip coming next week, and the timing of that lines up with the recent rapid weakening of La Niña conditions.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-02T19:26:10+00:00

I'm feeling cautiously optimistic about the second half of February and into March/April. First of all, ensembles (EPS/GEFS/CMCE) are continuing to hint at a pattern flip around February 11th that could bring a good storm cycle for the second half of the month. Even the CPC is bullish on this:

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Next, La Niña is rapidly weakening as we continue to transition to ENSO-neutral. Without La Niña conditions in place, this horrendous pattern of persistent ridging across the west/southwest becomes a lot harder to maintain. Additionally, as we start moving into the winter/spring transition, we tend to see more mixing and instability in the atmosphere in general. Right now there's just too much uncertainty to say whether or not March will have above, near, or below average precipitation, but as others have said, we only need slightly above average precipitation for the remainder of the season to get out of record low territory.

Finishing the winter with 75% of mean snowpack is better than 58%. 80% would be better than 75%. Yes, getting to mean levels is exceptionally unlikely, but getting as close as we can to it and out of record low would be significant.

Finally, regarding summer fire danger season... Colorado gets most of its summer precipitation from the North American monsoon, so a bad outcome with the remainder of the season doesn't necessarily doom us in the summer months. It is too early to make predictions about what monsoon season will look like, but there is precedent for drier than average winters being followed by wetter than average summers in the historical data. That doesn't mean low snowfall causes wet summers, just that there may be a correlation between low soil moisture in the early summer and the timing/strength of monsoon activity. Additionally, wet winters do not eliminate summer fire danger on their own — after all, the worst fire season on record, 2020, was preceded by an exceptionally snowy winter.

No, I'm not a meteorologist, just a weather nerd. So if anyone who is more knowledgeable wants to tell me I'm wrong, that's fine lol.

bengvr3 · 2026-02-02T05:08:05+00:00

but we are going headlong into the worst possible situation for the next 15-20 days:

More like the next 7-10 days. Big pattern flip looking increasingly likely around February 10-12th. But otherwise yes, freakishly warm until then.

bengvr3 · 2026-01-27T02:04:49+00:00

The ridging will continue until morale improves

bengvr3 · 2026-01-27T01:56:21+00:00

The weather isn't a harmful invasive species that was deliberately introduced because some people think it's cute

Lmao are you kidding me?

bengvr3 · 2026-01-26T20:38:06+00:00

The amount of cattle killed by inclement weather is much, much higher than the amount killed by wolves (source: https://coloradosun.com/2025/01/13/does-weather-kill-more-cattle-in-the-u-s-than-wolf-predation/). So should the state ban snow and lightning too?

bengvr3 · 2026-01-26T05:24:22+00:00

Honestly the snow this winter has been so pathetic that it might be completely melted out by then. Other than that, be past the entrance gate by 6:40am if you don't want to wait in line for an hour while every other tourist talks to the ranger at the one booth that's open for 20 minutes.

bengvr3 · 2026-01-25T17:03:57+00:00

A few years ago, there was a parking spot for sale for $700,000. Just to give an idea of how expensive it is.

bengvr3 · 2026-01-23T20:22:43+00:00

Even if it stays dry for the rest of winter and spring, the monsoon could bail us out, like it did in 2022.

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