A BLOG ABOUT SOUTHWESTERN WEATHER, Welcome to the MadWeather Blog! We have two basic rules for this blog:
WEATHER FORECASTING & OBSERVING, AND OTHER RELATED TOPICS
(1) Debate and discussion should be civil.
(2) Because public discussion, regardless of the topic,
is not very effective if we don't know who is talking to whom,
MadWeather does not accept anonymous posts.
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
Snow On Mt. Charleston Yesterday?
David Cristiani alerted me to media reports of snow on Mt. Charleston yesterday afternoon. Mt. Charleston is about 30 to 35 miles to the west-northwest of downtown Las Vegas. The mountain is the highest in Nevada, with an elevation of 11,916 ft msl. Photo above was provided to Las Vegas media by the ski area up on the mountain. Yesterday's storm event was not a cold event - the evening sounding from LAS had considerable CAPE and a freezing level around 600 mb. I don't see snow on the trees above, but there's lots of ice on the ground. The 2 pm MST regional radar from NCAR/RAL (below) indicates significant thunderstorms in the Las Vegas area with convection also occurring over Mt. Charleston. This was a serious storm event at lower elevations, with heavy rain and flooding. I suspect that the "snow" event was actually a mountain thunderstorm dumping a lot of graupel. The media report included a mention of lightning, which better fits yesterday's weather system than does snow.


No comments:
Post a Comment