https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Denver_Convergence_Vorticity_Zone
The microclimatology of mountain ranges is so neat. Denver receives warm winds from its southeast, then those get trapped in the foothills of the Rockies between Denver and Boulder/Golden. The mountains ricochet that air back around and it becomes trapped. In effect Denver tends to become a static hurricane where it’s either the eye or the ring. If everyone else in the region gets a big storm it looks like this. If the storms are dodging all of the other cities, they’re funneled into Denver and they get a high chance of tornado activity. Today Denver was the eye of the hurricane.
My friend got married in Littleton today and because of this we had lovely weather!
Now here’s the real fucker. In the top right of the screen is Greeley, a major cattle town where the JBS strike has been occurring. Its slaughterhouse and feedlots have such a godawful smell that it gets trapped in the recirculating air and spreads through the region, The Greeley Stench. When the DCVZ conditions are starting to occur and that north-south wind disperses the Greeley Stench, you can tell it’s about to snow: https://www.cpr.org/2018/12/17/weve-all-heard-smells-like-greeley-its-gonna-snow-but-do-you-know-why-that-is/
We have a cow shit weather forecasting machine powered by a hurricane.
what if we turned Greeley into a big bakery town so the snow warning was a delightful bakery smell instead of cow shit
I call it the shit winds
I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
neat
I used to live in Golden and once saw the wind bend a stop sign down to be horizontal. I also witnessed a tornado and a giant hail storm near the IKEA a couple years ago.
IIRC Denver was built in a basin formed by an ancient lake. The vortex is also why smog tends to stick around, much like in LA.
It’s such a fun region for weather. What we lack in big storms, we make up for in the mountain topography turning the weather extreme and unpredictable on a town-to-town basis. I really like seeing how things differ from Cheyenne to CO Springs based on the shapes of the mountains above them.
