Cool and unsettled weather week ahead
Sunday, January 5, 2020
Steamboat Springs is currently seeing partly cloudy skies early this Sunday afternoon ahead of a quick moving storm for tonight into Monday. Dry weather is forecast for Tuesday and most of Wednesday followed by modest snows from Wednesday night through Friday and a break for Saturday.
A storm currently affecting the Pacific Northwest coast will cross the Great Basin today and bring a cool front through north-central Colorado this evening. The best snows look to occur this evening, and may make travel difficult at times as there will be some wind. I would expect 3-6” for the morning report, with an additional 1-4” during the day, mostly before noon as snows taper off.
A ridge of high pressure moves over our area behind the storm and ahead of our next one that starts later Wednesday. Moisture may hold on in the drying northwest flow through some of Tuesday, with the chances for some sun increasing as the day wears on.
Some sun for Wednesday morning will give way to increasing clouds ahead of our next weather-maker that should start snows by Wednesday night. The first part of the storm will bring a cool front in northwest flow through our area Wednesday night with 1-4” of snow expected for the Thursday morning report. A trailing wave of Pacific energy mixes with some cold Canadian air as it grudgingly passes over our area on Thursday and Friday, leading to cool and unsettled weather with low-intensity snowfall for most of the two days. It is difficult to isolate the best period for snowfall during this time, but I would generally expect around 1-4” for each of the three twelve hours periods between Thursday morning and Friday afternoon.
Friday and the start of Saturday will be chilly behind the last part of the storm, though we should see some higher elevation warming by Saturday afternoon.
Snow showers are forecast to restart around mid-weekend as a strong storm moves through the Gulf of Alaska on Friday and again mixes with some very cold air from western Canada. Weather forecast models agree on this beginning a cold and wet period that may extend into the middle of the following work week, though differ on the details. I hope to have further clarity on the evolution of this possibly significant event by by next regularly schedule weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
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