A couple of dry cool fronts for the weekend
Thursday, October 3, 2019
After our coolest morning of the season in Steamboat Springs with a low temperature of 23 F at 7:35 am this Thursday, temperatures have dramatically warmed under bluebird skies. A couple of dry cool fronts are forecast for later Friday and Saturday for a cooler but still sunny weekend, followed by more sun and warmer temperatures for the first half of the following workweek. Around midweek, a cold and strong storm currently over the Bering Straight takes aim on our area and could bring the first snowflakes of the season to town.
Our noontime temperature was just below our at our average of 64 F, and we should see high temperatures in the low-seventies today and Friday as sunny skies prevail. A storm currently in the Pacific Northwest will clip Colorado Friday night, with a cold front forecast to blast through northern Colorado later in the afternoon or evening. We should see breezy southwest flow on Friday ahead of the front, with gusty winds turning to be from the west as the front passes and then northwest behind the front. The southern end of the storm is quite dry, so precipitation will be relegated to northern Wyoming and southern Montana.
High temperatures will fall from five to ten degrees above average on Friday to five to ten degrees below average on Saturday and Sunday. Another storm just upstream of the last has recently split just south of the Aleutian Islands, with the northern part of the storm forecast to clip our area Saturday night into Sunday morning and the southern end being left behind between the West Coast and Hawaii.
Meanwhile, a cold storm currently in eastern Siberia is forecast to travel across Alaska late in the weekend and mix with some additional cold air from near the North Pole. Ahead of this storm, expect more gorgeous and sunny weather for Monday and Tuesday with temperatures rebounding from the weekend to five to ten degrees above average again.
But enjoy this weather as that Alaska storm is forecast to bring a strong cold front through our area later Wednesday or early Thursday, accompanied by some moisture. Weather forecast models have recently trended stronger and colder with the storm, and at this point we could wake up to snow on the ground in town on Thursday morning.
While the current nice weather is forecast to return for several days after our possible first snow, that old piece of the split storm between the West Coast and Hawaii is forecast to merge with another upstream Pacific storm and possibly bring unsettled weather to the West around the following weekend.
