Good rain chances and cool weather to continue through midweek
Sunday, August 11, 2024
After some rain early this Sunday morning in Steamboat Springs, skies briefly cleared before clouding over again this mid-afternoon with comfortable temperatures in the mid-seventies. Good storm chances with high temperatures only in the mid to low-seventies will remain with us through midweek before temperatures return to around eighty degrees under drier skies starting Thursday and lasting into the weekend.
A flat ridge of high pressure still over the southern U.S. is bounded to the north by a seasonably active jet stream extending across the northern U.S. and anchored by troughs of low pressure over the West Coast and the Great Lakes. Monsoonal moisture first carried northward into Utah has approached us from the west and conspired with ripples of energy moving through the jet stream to create the cool weather and thunderstorms that have left between a third and half inch of rain across town since Friday.
The average high temperature is 82 F this week, and we will stay between five and ten degrees below average through Wednesday as good storm chances continue through both the day and night in the cool air under the jet stream. Tuesday and Wednesday will be the coolest days of the week with high temperatures struggling to reach the mid-seventies, with Tuesday likely the wettest day of the week before we see a final round of storms Wednesday afternoon and overnight as the West Coast trough moves through the northern Rockies and drags a cool front through our area.
That front will temporarily sweep the monsoonal moisture to the east as a building ridge of high pressure behind the cool front brings drier skies and warming temperatures by Thursday, with high temperatures returning to near eighty degrees by Friday and continuing into the weekend. Weather forecast models often are too eager to dry the atmosphere after a monsoonal surge, so low storm chances may persist even as we see lots of sunshine.
Another storm is forecast to replace the departed West Coast storm by the weekend, and we may see a return of monsoonal moisture later next weekend as winds turn to be from the south and southwest ahead of the storm. So enjoy the cool and sometimes stormy start to the workweek, look forward to the nice summer days to end the workweek, and check back for the weekend details in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
