Gorgeous Memorial Day weekend on tap
Thursday, May 24, 2018
It’s time to break out the barbecues as summer-like weather will grace the Steamboat Springs area heading into and lasting much of this coming Memorial Day weekend. A large Pacific storm will cross the West Coast tonight and loiter in the Great Basin through the weekend. Southwest flow ahead of the storm will bring very dry and unseasonably warm weather to the central and southern Rocky Mountains, along with sometimes breezy conditions through Sunday.
The storm is forecast to wobble eastward late in the weekend, and energy ejecting out of the storm may drag some weak cool fronts through our area on Sunday and Memorial Day. The dry atmosphere on Sunday will preclude much change in the sensible weather, but a better chance of showers will occur Monday afternoon and evening, likely producing more wind than rain as the atmosphere remains relatively dry.
The storm is forecast to graze our area on Tuesday as it moves northeastward out of the Great Basin, with a smaller chance of still mostly windy showers by the afternoon.
A ridge of high pressure builds in behind the departing storm and ahead of another Pacific storm approaching the West Coast on Wednesday. A weak subtropical wave from the southwest may be strong enough to spark some afternoon and evening showers on Wednesday as it moves over Colorado, and there may or may not be a weaker wave for Thursday.
The forecast for the following weekend will likely be determined by the still uncertain evolution of the West Coast storm, though mostly benign weather is expected as the storm track is pushed northward by the strong late-spring sun.
