Unsettled weather for the upcoming week

Thursday, June 13, 2019

The past few days of beautiful mostly sunny weather in Steamboat Springs will be turning more unsettled for the upcoming week. Waves of Pacific energy and moisture will move over the West and increase rainfall chances starting on Friday and lasting through midweek.

Though our area has enjoyed mostly sunny skies with high temperatures right near our average of 73 F over the last few days, atmospheric moisture this Thursday is already increasing ahead of several Pacific disturbances taking aim on the West. The first will bring some more clouds this afternoon, and any showers will be confined to the higher elevations to our north and produce more wind than rain as the lower levels of the atmosphere are quite dry.

But that changes on Friday as a stronger disturbance passes by in the afternoon and substantially increases the moisture in all levels of the atmosphere. Showers will become more likely by later in the day and overnight, some of which may produce brief periods of locally moderate to heavy rain.

Another disturbance is forecast for later Saturday, so more showers producing locally moderate to heavy rain for a time are again likely. In fact, a parade of nebulous and hard-to-time disturbances will pass by in generally west to northwest flow through Tuesday of next week, keeping good chances of mostly afternoon and evening showers, some moderate to heavy, on each day.

By mid-next week, a series of stronger Pacific disturbances are forecast to cross the Pacific Northwest coast. There is weather forecast disagreement with regards to the southern extent of these disturbances, but models agree that we will at least see breezy to windy west to northwest winds as these disturbances move eastward.

Lastly, I am considering decreasing the frequency of these weather narratives to once per week on Thursdays in order to lessen my workload. And I’m just not sure how many people are reading this in the summer. Please contact me if you have thoughts about this possible change.