When I left home shortly after noon, I really had no intent of any storm chasing or weather photography. I was aware of a cluster of thunderstorms in the mountains north of Pagosa Springs and that likely thundersnow was occurring at high altitude, but the storms were in the roadless Weminuche Wilderness and did not seem to be moving toward Wolf Creek Pass (the only place anywhere near their path that you can drive to}, so when I left home in Pagosa Springs, I was really just going about a series of errands. However, when I got to an area with a clear view of the storms, I saw quite a bit of CG lightning, despite the elevated nature of the storms. And it did appear, as the radar had suggested, that the p-type was snow or graupel at least down to the higher mountaintops, and that the precipitation was quite heavy. Still, at that point, I did not really think the storms would go anywhere I could drive to. My first stop in a number of errands was the post office, and while waiting in line I decided to check the radar on my phone again. It now showed that a strong cell had popped up on the southern edge of the cluster, and that its movement would likely take it pretty close to Wolf Creek Pass. I got through the post office line fairly quickly, checked radar again in the parking lot, and it looked much the same. Chase on!
As I drove up toward the pass, I could see that I was on a direct track toward the storm. The only real questions were whether it would be past Wolf Creek Pass before I could get there, and of course whether there would be snow, or just rain, at the altitude of the pass. Once I got above the hairpin turn/scenic overlook, I began to see lightning. Still was not sure if the p-type would be snow at the pass, but I was getting closer and closer to an area of substantial precipitation. Soon I was in the rain, and as I got closer to the summit, I began to see that there was snow on the ground at the top. Then the precipitation got heavier, and wet snow and/or graupel mixed in with the rain. With more flashes of lighting, I knew I was in thundersnow. I wanted to get to the summit, both because I though there would be more snow there and becasue you can get a bit away from the road there and have less road noise in your video. For the last half mile or so to the summit and within a few hundred vertical feet of it, the road was covered with slush - I would say half an inch to maybe close to an inch in places - and slippery. I slid a little, which reminded me to switch to 4WD. At the top, now around 1 p.m., I pulled off into a parking area and started taking phone video {the only video camera I had since, remember, when I left home I was just doing errands). The p-type then was mostly wet snow and/or graupel (snow pellets), with a little rain mixed in. I got thunder almost immediately, then more, and then more. I had gotten there in time! Here is my video:
For an elevated storm, producing snow at high altitude, there was a lot of lightning and thunder. By the time I got there, it was on the downswing, and seemed to be mostly in-cloud lightning rather than CG (though there had been a lot of that earlier), but the thunder was still frequent. Also, the temperature change I experienced was quite dramatic, owing both to the change in altitude and the effects of the storm. In Pagosa Springs, I had 67 on my car thermometer, and nearing Treasure Falls, it still was not much below that. But at the pass, I had 35 - a drop of more than 30 degrees! All told, a very interesting and quite surprising thundersnow chase. Really, I wish it was always this easy.