Quintessential Colorado summer days ahead
Thursday, June 8, 2017
Plenty of sunshine will be on tap for the next week as the current summer-like weather continues through the weekend. Currently, a ridge of high pressure over the Rocky Mountains has brought above normal temperatures and dry air to the Steamboat Springs area, eliminating the chances for our typical afternoon thunderstorms.
A strong and cold storm is bringing precipitation to the Pacific Northwest coast, and some energy will eject from this storm and travel well to our north over the weekend. However, the Rocky Mountain ridge will be flattened and moved eastward by the strengthening southwest flow around the storm, bringing breezy southwest winds and more dry air from the desert southwest over our region.
The Rocky Mountain ridge rebuilds for a short time around Sunday ahead of the slowly moving Pacific storm moving eastward across the Great Basin. Even though the ridge will serve to deflect the parent storm north of us towards Montana, keeping precipitation to our north, the storm is potent enough to bring an unseasonably strong cold front through the area around Monday. If the southern end of the storm had any appreciable moisture, we would see snow below 8000′ by Tuesday morning! But just much cooler temperatures will be noted for the beginning of the work week under continued breezy conditions as the front barrels through the region and backs the winds from the southwest to the west.
Winds will slacken and temperatures will warm back to normal on Wednesday, and stay that way for the rest of the work week, with any chances of precipitation confined to the end of this forecast period.
