Thanks to everyone who entered our “First Snow” contest. We briefly review the entries, which surprisingly follow closely with Boulder’s climatology of late October.
In the announcement post for this contest, we offered a little insight by providing a few of Boulder’s “first snow” statistics. 87 of you came up with “educated” guesses for the timing and amount of Boulder’s first snow of the 2017-2018 winter season. The entries are contained in the calendar below:
Click calendar to ENLARGE
A few observations:
- Dates range from September 18th (TODAY!) through November 22nd
- Mean date: October 21th | Median date : October 24th
- Amounts range from 0.2 to 23.0 inches
- Mean amount: 3.0″ | Median amount: 2.2″
- The most popular day selected was Wednesday, October 25th. Three people even chose the exact same amount: 2.5″. Is this foreshadow?
- 75% of entries predict a first snow of 4 inches or less
SUMMARY OF PRIZES:
For prizes, we’re giving away free BoulderCAST Premium subscriptions. As a reminder, BoulderCAST Premium members get full-access to our daily forecast discussion every morning at 5AM. This is especially useful in the winter, when our meteorologists brain-dump thoughts for days leading up to impactful snowstorms. In case you weren’t with us the last few winters, we did quite well for the entire Denver Metro area’s snow forecasts (2015-16 Recap / 2016-17 Recap). Premium members also have admittance to the 24-hour version of our hourly forecast, complete 6-day hiking and 3-day ski forecasts, have early viewing of select content, can request custom forecasts, and other added perks. Read our announcement post for more information.
The prizes for the contest are as follows:
- 1st place: 6-month subscription to Premium + BoulderCAST T-Shirt
- 2nd place: 3-month subscription to Premium
- 3rd – 5th places: 1-month subscription to Premium
- All other places: Virtual “pat on the back”
SUMMARY OF SCORING:
Those who come closest to the actual date of Boulder’s first MEASURABLE SNOW (defined as snow at or above 0.1″) win! For verification, we’ll go off the official Boulder climate station located at the NIST building in south Boulder.
In the event that multiple entries end-up the same amount of days from the verification date, snowfall amount will be used as the tie-breaker.
QUICK FORECAST:
Alongside the cold temperatures this upcoming weekend, some snow could fall in the Foothills Sunday or Monday, but it looks like any precipitation would be a chilly rain on the Plains. Beyond that, long-range forecast guidance suggests another ridge and warmer temperatures returning by the middle of next week taking us into early October. No prospects for snow just yet!
Prizes and recognition will be awarded in the days following our first dumping of snow, BIG or SMALL. Let’s hope it’s one to remember!
