Winter Micro Climates

Winter micro climates are very common in Colorado. A Typical winter micro climate on golf courses are Northern exposures these areas hold the snow most of the winter. And the complete opposite happens on the southern exposures which are dry and greening up. So we have some areas of the course that are greening up while others are still frozen and under snow.

These two micro climates usually are not to far apart most times on the same hole or just yards from each other.

#5 Mountain Fairway Northern Exposure

20 inches of snow

# 17 rough Southern Exposure

greening up and no snow cover

NOAA Weather Report

NOAA Weather Report for Colorado March-May

• La Niña continues to weaken in the Pacific Ocean. Surface and sub-surface water

temperature anomalies in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean have decreased and will

likely continue to do so in the coming months.

• The recent decline in La Niña may be linked to large scale oceanic and atmospheric

circulations and anomalous warming produced by a moderate to strong Madden-Julian

Oscillation (MJO) that propagated eastward across the tropical Pacific Ocean in late January

and early February.

• The movement of the MJO across the eastern Pacific Ocean may account for the relatively

sudden shift from unseasonably warm and dry conditions across Colorado and the western

U.S. in December and early January, to the unseasonably cool and moist (snowy) conditions

across the southwest and central Rocky Mountain regions of the U.S. from late January to

mid-February. Conditions normally attributed to La Niña were replaced with those commonly

associated with El Niño.

• With the MJO weakening as it moves east across northern Africa and over the Indian

Ocean, the jet stream and weather patterns across the western U.S. should return to

those commonly associated with a La Niña. However, as this La Niña weakens, so

will its influence on weather patterns affecting the U.S.

• The outlook for Colorado issued by the Climate Prediction Center for the March-May

climate season is calling for at least a one-in-three chance of above average temperatures

and below average precipitation across the entire state.

What's a Purr-wick Golf Green?

What actually is a Purr-wick golf green and how are they constructed?

The Purr-wick golf green design was first conceived in 1966 at Purdue University by Dr William H. Daniel. The design was attempting to create capillary action from coarse sand to fine sand. Basically a water pool/table on the bottom of the green created by a plastic barrier. This water will be absorbed by capillary action to the finer sand above. In theory you can change the level of the water in the green by adding or reducing risers that are located at the drainage exit. This water table is created by separate tiers on golf greens with contours. So a high area on a green is one tier and a low area is another. Most greens at the Pinery have 3-4 tiers as far as we can tell, since we have locate most of the outgoing drains. The ability to manage the water table on Purr-wick golf greens gives the design an advantage to manage water in extreme weather conditions.

The Purr-wick design was originally constructed for water conservation on sports turf and eventually found its way to the golf industry. There are still many examples of Purr-wick greens construction mostly in the mid west. As far as I know we have the largest examples of Purr-wick construction in the country with 27 golf greens.

#8 green lake course

Note the plastic liner and the separate tiers.

You can see the pipe on right of the green that exits to the right.

Profile View of Purr-wick golf green

Cross section drawing of drainage and riser system

Notice the water table and capillary action to the sand above

Time Lapse

A short test video on time lapse snow removal off of #8 green mountain. This was filmed back in January and filmed with a GoPro Hero. A picture was taken every 5 seconds. It took us over an hour to remove most of the snow and ice off the green. But now we can watch it in just over 2 minutes.

Record Snow

The last week we saw record snow fall in Colorado. This major winter storm started on Groundhog Day February 2nd late in the afternoon and kept snowing through Saturday the 4th. There were snow totals in Pinecliffe Colorado located in the foothills around 51 inches and totals here at the Pinery of 24 inches. What a storm, some areas had snow rates over 2 inches per hour. As of now most of Colorado is covered in a white blanket of fresh snow.

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