Steamboat Springs area weather forecast from Wednesday afternoon
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
After a brief break tonight into Thursday morning, the next storm in the wave train will bring another round of moderate to heavy snow showers to the area by Thursday afternoon and extending through the night. There may be short-lived accumulations on the roadway in the valleys during the heavier showers, but the majority of valley accumulations should be on grassy surfaces. The mountain, on the other hand, will see another 3-6” of snow by early Friday morning.
The last storm in the near term, forecast to cross the Pacific Northwest coast on Friday night and then take up residence in the Great Basin for the weekend and beginning of next week, will mix with energy from the previous storm spinning over the Colorado Rockies on Saturday. The complicated interaction leads to subtle differences in the model which decrease forecast confidence heading into the weekend.
Currently, it appears persistent showers will continue through Friday morning with an additional inch or two on the mountain. The dryer NAM keeps only afternoon showers around for the weekend while the wetter AVN has more persistent showers through both days. But they agree the Front Range foothills will pick up substantial snow from Thursday night through Friday, making travel difficult.
The Great Basin storm is forecast to move over our area around Monday, keeping chances of at least afternoon storms high. The storm waffles around the area before parts of it start moving east of our area around Tuesday, keeping the threat of showers high for Tuesday as well, especially in the afternoon.
Wednesday and Thursday should bring a nice springtime break in the active weather with warming and drying. However, yet another large storm looks to affect our weather as soon as Friday and extending into Mother’s Day weekend.
