As I mentioned in my previous post, much of the Central and Southern Rockies have been stuck in a very dry and unseasonably mild pattern. As of today, December 1, 2021, this is now officially the driest fall in my 12 years of records. 12 years is not a significantly long period of time. However, considering that Denver has not had a measurable snowfall yet, and they shattered their latest measurable snow record set on 11/21/1934 with no snow in the forecast, this has been a considerably dry season. Here are the snowfall rankings by season through November 30th from my records:
And the precipitation (liquid) rankings are:
The fall of 2021 is now dead last.
So, for the other drier autumn years, 2016 and 2010, how did we do for snowfall for the rest of the winter? We had 114 inches in the 2010-2011 season and 143 inches in the 2016-2017 season. Both were below normal, but 2016-2017 actually wasn’t too bad:
Even though it has been very dry, this does not necessarily mean that we will not get any snow this season. In other words, a dry fall is not a good indicator of how the rest of the winter will be. It seems like we are on track for a below normal snow season, but just how below normal remains to be seen.