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<br />TELLURIDE SKI & GOLF COMPANY AND THE SOUTHWESTERN <br />WATER CONSER V A nON DISTRICT PROGRAM--1999-2000 <br />FOR THE TELLURIDE SKI AREA AND UPPER SAN MIGUEL DRAINAGE BASIN <br /> <br />Weather Summary for the 1999-2000 Seeding Season <br /> <br />Weather events during October and the first half of November were minimal to non- <br />existent over Colorado. Fair skies and above normal temperatures during this period provided an <br />extended Indian Summer for all of Colorado. <br /> <br />Four days of stormy weather just prior to Thanksgiving ushered in the first taste of winter <br />for the 1999-2000 Season. The first three weeks of December saw a return to more frequent <br />weather systems. However, these weather systems provided the region with less than average <br />amoWlts of precipitation. This fall and early winter drought left the snowpack in the San Juans at <br />only 33 to 40% of average at the end of December. <br /> <br />The weather in January was quite active and provided frequent seedableevents. The <br />heavier precipitation from these numerous snowstorms improved the snowpack to 60 to 62% of <br />normal and even produced enough snowpack to result in a brief operational suspension for <br />avalanche control. <br /> <br />In reviewing the seasons weather events, we fOWld that about one fourth (4 of 17) of the <br />seeded events had predominantly southwesterly moist wind flows. Half of the remaining seeded <br />storms (7 of 17) had wind flows that started with moist southwest flows that sWitched to colder <br />northwest flows during the passage of the storm system over the region. The other half of the <br />remaining seeded systems had wind flows predominantly from the northwest (6 of 17). <br /> <br />In nine of the seventeen seeded events, the precipitation observed at Telski was as large <br />or larger than the same total storm precipitation observed at both the Lizard Head Pass or Red <br />Mountain Pass snotel sites. This again occurred about equally with either southwesterly or <br />northwesterly wind flows or from wind flows that started from the southwest and became <br />northwesterly. In six of the eight remaining seeded weather events, the precipitation observed at <br />Telski was as large or larger than one of the adjacent mOWltain pass precipitation sites. <br /> <br />Again this season, the total observed precipitation at the Telski site was greater than <br />either of the Lizard Head or Red Mountain Pass precipitation sites and was 24.6% greater than <br />the average of the two mountain pass sites. <br /> <br />Western Weather Consultants has completed its third season of a 5-year Cloud Seeding <br />Permit for the San Miguel Drainage Basin that was issued in January 1998. <br /> <br />2 <br />