Quick moving late Friday storm followed by seasonable weather
Thursday, October 19, 2017
After another gorgeous fall day today, the Steamboat Springs weather for Friday will be changing thanks to a storm currently crossing the Pacific Northwest coast. As the storm moves across the Great Basin tomorrow, moisture and winds will increase ahead of a sharp cold front, similar in strength to last Saturday’s storm. There may be some rain showers ahead of the front tomorrow afternoon, but most of the precipitation will be in the form of snow along and behind the windy cold front Friday evening and overnight as temperatures plummet over twenty degrees.
Snow showers will end Saturday morning followed by partly sunny skies, breezy conditions and relatively cold temperatures. We will get some warming for the first half of Sunday before another storm, rotating through the Gulf of Alaska, travels along the U.S. - Canadian border and brings another surge of not-as-cold air and some clouds for later Sunday.
The storm is forecast to sag into the northern Great Plains on Monday, and while showers will likely stay to our north and east, clouds and some cooler will stick around into Tuesday.
Much drier air and much warmer temperatures are expected for Wednesday ahead of another Gulf of Alaska storm approaching our area from the northwest. Numerical weather models have trended further south and west with this storm over the last few runs, and at this point it looks like another cold front approaches our area on Thursday.
For the following weekend, we may be affected by the remnants of typhoon Lan, currently threatening parts of Japan this weekend. Hurricanes form in the Atlantic and eastern Pacific, while typhoons are their counterpart in the western Pacific. Because they often spend longer periods of time over warm open waters, they can be even more powerful than hurricanes, with the strongest becoming super-typhoons.
Typhoon Lan, which may fall into the super-typhoon category, is forecast to be absorbed by the Pacific jet stream after the weekend and might impact our weather next weekend. Of course, to get the next weekend forecast right for our area, the typhoon needs be accurately forecast for Japan this weekend, which is a tall order. If current model forecasts are to be believed, much cooler and unsettled weather might end this month and start the next one.
