After early showers, drier weather for the week starts Halloween
Monday, October 30, 2017
A couple more cold fronts will pass through the Steamboat Springs area this week, with the first reinforcing the current cool temperatures and bringing the possibility of snow showers around midnight and early Tuesday morning. Some dry air to our north will move over our area in northwest flow after the morning, and we should see a dry but chilly Halloween afternoon and evening.
Temperatures will warm to normal for Wednesday before another cool front in northwest flow passes over northern Colorado on Thursday. Though we will see temperatures knocked back a bit and there will be some clouds, the bulk of the moisture stays to our north.
Friday will feature dry conditions with some warming ahead of a complex storm that forms in the Gulf of Alaska thanks to some Pacific energy traveling over a ridge of high pressure in the Bering Sea and mixing with some cold air from western Canada. The storm will split off the West Coast during the weekend, with our area forecast to be under the influence of the southern part of the storm on Saturday and both parts of the storm later in the weekend or early next week.
It is no surprise there is uncertainty regarding the evolution of this storm, but right now some low elevation rain showers and high elevation snow showers are expected around Saturday afternoon before they end ahead of the cool front associated with the northern part of the storm. This front is expected later Sunday afternoon or evening with showers, though at this point it may or may not be cold enough for snow in the Yampa Valley.
By Monday, showers will increase and snow levels will rise as the cool front is chased back north by energy ejecting out of the southern part of the storm. At least one numerical weather forecast brings the southern part of the storm through the Great Basin and affects our area with low elevation rain and high elevation snow for later Monday and Tuesday, ahead of a break in the active weather pattern advertised for midweek.
