Weather to start changing this weekend

Thursday, September 28, 2023

Another picture perfect summery day is over the Steamboat Springs area with temperatures in the low sixties under cloudless skies late this Thursday morning. After reaching almost eighty degrees today, high temperatures through Saturday will fall to the mid seventies, along with increasing afternoon breezes and then clouds by Saturday ahead of an approaching storm for next week. By Sunday, the storm will be close enough to drop high temperatures to near seventy degrees along with more wind, with that cooling trend continuing into next week.

A large storm previously in the Gulf of Alaska is being forced eastward across the northern Rockies by our next weather maker taking its place. This storm is currently grabbing some cold air moving southward across Alaska and is forecast to elongate southward along the West Coast on Saturday before cutting off from the main jet stream and forming a wobbly eddy that moves eastward into the Great Basin on Sunday.

There won’t be much change to our gorgeous early fall weather through Friday except a degree or two of cooling and afternoon breezes out of the southwest. Those breezes will increase on Saturday along with some spotty Pacific moisture that will bring some increasing high clouds and perhaps even a shower that would be most likely at the highest elevations to our north.

As the storm moves into Nevada on Sunday, winds will increase and slightly turn to be more from the south as cooler air begins to filter into the area. High temperatures will drop to near seventy degrees, which is still several degrees above our rapidly falling average of 67 F for the first day of October. Clouds will come and go with some showers possible as a lobe of energy ejects out of the storm to our northwest and possibly grazes our area.

The cooling trend will remain in place through through the beginning of the next work week as the storm rotates through the Great Basin on Monday and moves overhead during Tuesday. So enjoy the currently gorgeous early fall weather, and check back on Sunday afternoon for my next regularly scheduled weather narrative where I’ll look at how much and what type of precipitation we may see during the coming work week.