More precipitation chances for the workweek
Sunday, October 12, 2025
After nine-tenths of an inch of rainfall in Steamboat Springs over the last three days, punctuated by the town’s first snowfall of the season of three-quarters of an inch this Sunday morning, skies are clearing early this afternoon. Temperatures will struggle to reach fifty degrees today, but should approach sixty degrees on Columbus Day, despite good rain chances from the approaching remnants of another tropical storm that will continue into Tuesday. And, similar to this weekend’s storm, a cold front is forecast to follow around Wednesday night, continuing the unsettled weather for Thursday.
Drier air behind a cold front last night has replaced moisture from the remnants of former Hurricane Priscilla, which brought three-quarters of an inch of rain to town yesterday. While the cold front was well-advertised, its strength was underestimated until yesterday afternoon, as cold air moving southward from western Canada was split between the storm moving across the Great Basin and a new storm forming near Vancouver.
While I was not surprised to see snow in town this morning based upon yesterday’s guidance, I was surprised that the snowfall exhibited very little elevation dependence, as both the upper mountain and mid mountain received two inches, compared to the three-quarters of an inch in town. In hindsight, strong cold fronts that are not followed by orographic, or terrain-driven precipitation, often can bring similar snowfall to all elevations.
The storm over Vancouver is forecast to strengthen as it moves southward along the West Coast, forming an eddy over San Francisco by Monday night. Similar to this past weekend, moisture from the remnants of another tropical system near Baja, former Tropical Storm Raymond, will be drawn northward and over our area by the southwest winds ahead of the West Coast storm and a rebuilding ridge of high pressure over Texas extending northeastward into the Midwest.
High temperatures on Columbus Day will rise toward sixty degrees, near our average of sixty-one degrees, after a cold night with low temperatures falling below our average of twenty-seven degrees due to mostly clear skies and light winds. Several rounds of showers are forecast to start on Monday, possibly as early as noon, but more likely in the early afternoon, and continue into Tuesday morning.
Skies should turn mostly sunny by Tuesday afternoon, allowing temperatures to rise into the mid-sixties, with the mostly clear skies continuing through Wednesday morning. Meanwhile, a storm forecast to move across the Bering Sea and the Gulf of Alaska will force the West Coast storm eastward, crossing the Great Basin Tuesday night and Wednesday, and bringing a cold front through our area Wednesday night.
After another day of mid-sixty-degree temperatures on Wednesday, low-elevation rain showers and high-elevation snow showers should begin by Wednesday afternoon or evening and continue into Thursday, persisting the longest at higher elevations. High temperatures will fall behind the cold front, struggling to reach fifty degrees on Thursday, and possibly longer, as cool northwest flow persists for a couple of days.
While Friday will likely be cool and dry, there is weather forecast uncertainty for Saturday, as the ECMWF drops part of the Gulf of Alaska storm southward toward our area on Saturday, and the American GFS moves that part of the storm through Montana. Enjoy the very fall-like coming workweek, and I’ll have more details on the evolving weekend forecast in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
