Former hurricane Blanca influences our weather starting tomorrow
Tuesday, June 9, 2015
Former hurricane Blanca, currently in the Gulf of California, will travel northeastward across the Great Basin today and tonight as a Pacific storm crosses the West Coast tomorrow morning. It appears that the former hurricane will first move over our area tomorrow afternoon and evening before being quickly followed by what will end up being a slow-moving Pacific storm which may affect our weather through mid-weekend.
First, high clouds will invade our area tonight, and thicken and lower tomorrow before showers or a more persistent light to moderate rain arrives for the afternoon. Rainfall intensity will decrease overnight as I expect our heaviest precipitation to occur behind this initial event as a significant amount of moisture is left behind for the Pacific storm.
As the Pacific storm begins to move eastward towards our area on Thursday, some cool air from the Canadian plains mixes with the system, leading to a slower and stronger storm. There is some uncertainty when the cool air reaches our area, but current forecasts have moderate to heavy showers later Thursday and overnight before they diminish by early Friday. An additional surge of cool air is forecast to again increase the intensity and duration of showers by Friday afternoon and overnight.
Saturday looks to be cool with some light showers behind the finally-departing storm. Some dry air is forecast to sneak into parts of northern Colorado on Sunday, and this may lead to the typical afternoon thunderstorms after a sunny morning.
Monday looks to be very similar to Sunday before a much drier regime is advertised to occur over our area around Tuesday. The dry air may be interrupted by the end of next week as some models have a wave traveling to our north, but longer-term models keep this dry air mostly intact through next weekend and into the following week.
