Active weather returns after a beautiful work week
Monday, February 13, 2017
The disappearance of the Bering Sea ridge has allowed cold air from Siberia and the North Pole to surge into the central Pacific and re-energize the jet stream. A ridge of high pressure that has built off the West Coast in response to the strong Pacific jet stream will translate over the western U.S. during the work week, bringing warm and mostly sunny conditions through Thursday.
Starting around Friday, energy from the Pacific jet will force the ridge of high pressure eastward and bring showers to the western U.S. There are a number of waves of energy that will move through the area for the long President’s Day weekend, and the forecast timing, strength and duration of the precipitation will almost certainly change as we get closer to the weekend. Hopefully, better model agreement and more details will emerge for my late-week forecast.
Right now, the first wave is forecast to move over the Continental Divide on Friday, bringing mostly light snow showers to the Steamboat Springs area during the day.
Another Pacific wave splits as it crosses the West Coast on Saturday, and this may bring some more showers to the area mid-weekend if the parts of the storm are close enough to Colorado.
A third wave quickly follows the second, and this may bring a better chance of snows to the Steamboat Springs area around Monday before a brief break is advertised ahead of another stormy period that is forecast to close out the month.
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