The ongoing Sunday night into Monday storm across the central Andes keeps producing mainly upper-mountain snow through Monday before tapering out by Tuesday morning, April 21. A realistic near-term outcome is about 16-20 cm at Las Leñas, 9-11 cm at Valle Nevado, and lighter 5-8 cm amounts around El Colorado, La Parva, and Portillo.
Kennedy predicts hot and dry conditions from the west will shift eastward later this week, allowing for a noticeable warm-up and shift towards spring-like conditions.
Friday's snow event is expected to be modest, with most open resorts like Arapahoe Basin and Breckenridge receiving a couple of inches, while closed areas like Snowmass may see up to half a foot.
The ongoing storm is expected to add 13-16 cm at Banff Sunshine and around 4-5 cm at Lake Louise by Friday morning, with the deepest moisture focused on Alberta.
Wind chill is a measure of how quickly bodies lose heat when you combine low temperatures with high winds. And wind chill conditions can be dangerous. "The stronger the winds [and] the colder it is, the more likely you are to develop frostbite in a short amount of time or hypothermia," says Jessica Lee of the National Weather Service's Weather Prediction Center.
Residents should prepare for the worst of the storm late Sunday night, when snowfall rates could exceed 2 inches per hour. The weather service believes the heaviest snow will come down from 7 p.m. Sunday through about 12 p.m. Monday. The snow is expected to develop Sunday morning and afternoon, possibly mixing with rain at the onset before tapering off late Monday morning into Monday afternoon.
WeatherAnchorage has officially logged the snowiest January in its recorded history after another powerful winter storm pushed monthly snowfall totals past a long-standing record, according to data from the National Weather Service reported by Alaska Public Media and The Associated Press. As of 3 p.m. on January 27, the National Weather Service office in West Anchorage measured 39.7 inches of snow for the month, surpassing the previous January record of 34.4 inches set in 2000.
A record-breaking snowfall event unfolded in far eastern Russia last week when the town of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, located on the Kamchatka peninsula's east coast, received more than 1.8 metres (6 feet) of lying snow in places. Strong winds accompanying the snowfall caused extreme drifting of more than 3 metres against buildings and cars. Two key ingredients combined to cause such an extreme snowfall event. Strong Pacific low pressures dragged moist air from the tropics northwards, which clashed with cold Arctic air already over the region. Conveyor belts of tropical air are called atmospheric rivers and often bring heavy rainfall to places such as California.
