Summery weather is back
Thursday, June 11, 2020
The Steamboat Springs area is seeing a beautiful June day with sunny skies and a noontime temperature of 67 F on this Thursday. Tomorrow looks to be the warmest day of the week before a strong storm from the Gulf of Alaska grazes our area mid-weekend, with Saturday afternoon and evening showers that may produce more wind than rain. Temperature will return to average behind the grazing storm for the rest of the upcoming week, along with windy to breezy flow from the southwest.
The southern part of a large and cold storm currently extending from the Gulf of Alaska to off the coast of California is forecast to make landfall on Friday. A ridge of high pressure over the West is forecast to amplify ahead of the storm on Friday, bringing our warmest temperatures of the upcoming week that will be ten degrees or so above our average high of 72 F.
While most of the precipitation and cold air will be confined to the Pacific Northwest over the weekend, there will be a chance of showers over our area Saturday afternoon and evening as the southerly winds ahead of the storm carries moisture originally from the Gulf of Mexico northward. However, the lower levels of the atmosphere are forecast to remain dry, so look for these showers to possibly produce more wind than rain as the precipitation evaporates before reaching the ground (virga).
While clouds will moderate the high temperatures on Saturday to be in the seventies, a weak cool front grazing our area Saturday night will keep them there on a dry, sunny and breezy Sunday.
The breezy winds from the southwest are expected to persist through the work week in the dry air behind the storm and ahead of another Pacific Northwest storm later in the week.
There is weather forecast model uncertainty with respect to the strength of this next Pacific Northwest storm, with the American GFS being stronger and the European ECMWF trending weaker. While we may see another round of breezy southwesterly winds if the storm ends up being on the stronger side, both models agree currently agree on the following weekend staying dry.
June snow likely in town by Tuesday morning
Sunday, June 7, 2020
Sunny skies and strong winds from the south have returned to Steamboat Springs this Sunday afternoon behind Saturday’s storm. A large and cold storm to our northwest will first bring a dry cold front through our area tonight, followed by a stronger cold front later on Monday that now looks moist enough to bring accumulating snows at higher elevations and even snowfall downtown overnight. Temperatures will start the work week in the fifties and end in the seventies, with dry weather expected after the snow.
Along with very strong winds, rainfall amounts ranged from one to three tenths in the Yampa Valley from the storm on Saturday. Winds have picked up again today ahead of the next storm currently located around southern Idaho. Showers look to be confined to the northwest corner of Colorado today ahead of the initial cold front that should pass through our area early this evening.
Monday morning will be cold, though the coldest mornings look to be Tuesday and Wednesday, and I would suggest protecting sensitive vegetation for all three mornings, and possibly Thursday morning as well. High temperatures on Monday will be in the fifties, fifteen to twenty degrees below our average of 71 and thirty to thirty five degrees below our unseasonably warm day last Friday!
While Monday should be mostly dry with temperatures in the fifties as cold air filters in, a reinforcing cold front is forecast to pass through our area around Monday evening as the southern end of the parent storm moves through. And there is now enough moisture forecast to make snow, with accumulations of several inches at the higher elevations, including Rabbit Ears Pass, and some snow likely on the grassy surfaces in town by Tuesday morning.
Showers may hang on Tuesday morning in the classic cold, moist, unstable and favorable northwest flow before ending by noon. Even though the sun is strong as we are only two weeks away from the summer solstice, temperatures will once again be relegated to the fifties behind the departing storm.
Another cold morning is in store for Wednesday, though temperatures should warm into the sixties under mostly to partly sunny skies as a ridge of high pressure begins building over the West.
Keep an eye on your plants for Thursday morning, since temperatures that are forecast to be in the thirties may allow low-lying areas to be near freezing. But the warming continues, with temperatures back near average on Thursday under sunny skies.
Another cold storm is forecast to form in the Gulf of Alaska over the week, with the southerly flow ahead of the storm forcing the ridge of high pressure over the West to amplify. As the storm makes landfall along the West Coast late in the work week, the ridge of high pressure is forced eastward over the Rocky Mountains, and we may see a chance of showers return on Friday and Saturday along with warmer than average temperatures as moisture to our south is brought northward.
The storm gets close enough to our area around the weekend for windy southerly or southwesterly conditions, but it looks like summer is going to win this battle as the storm is deflected mostly to our northwest. If it is deflected as currently advertised, we may see a grazing cool front for late in the weekend or early the following work week, though after our likely snow Monday night and the summer solstice present last year, I’ll reserve judgement on that until my next weather narrative, scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
A Tale of Two Storms
Friday, June 5, 2020
While Steamboat Springs is currently seeing mostly sunny skies and our warmest day of the year so far, with a 4 pm temperature of 85 F this Friday afternoon, big changes are in store as two storms approach our area. The first will be warmer and produce a wet Saturday, while the second is much drier and very cold, and may produce snowflakes down to the Yampa Valley floor Monday evening.
The first storm, currently entering Arizona, is actually the southern eddy of the storm that brought a weak cool front through our area a few days ago on Wednesday. The storm has become quite wet as it loitered off the California coast, and will be moving over our area on Saturday. Some showers may break out tonight, most likely along the Continental Divide, but expect a cloudy start to Saturday with showers beginning by noon and possibly strong storms after noon, along with breezy to windy southwesterly to southerly flow. And, as insisted on by the American GFS for a week now, it looks like most of western Colorado will get a good soaking from this, with a third to a half inch of rain expected through the day.
With last night’s flow under the Fifth Street bridge at 3000 cfs, (availabe on the SnowAlarm home page under the ‘Compared to Average’ heading, and almost 4 feet of snow containing almost 2 feet of liquid water still present at the Tower Snotel near the top of Buffalo Pass, heavy rainfall may create some localized flooding concerns.
It does look like we see rapid drying behind the storm for Saturday night as the second storm approaches.
This second storm has spent the last week traversing the northern Pacific, and has become very cold as it mixed with the still-cold air from the North Pole. Currently in the Gulf of Alaska, it will keep the first storm moving to our east as we begin Sunday with mostly sunny skies and breezy southwesterly winds as the storm passes through the Pacific Northwest. Some energy is forecast to eject over the northwest corner of Colorado and bring the initial surge of cool air over our area by Sunday evening, with showers currently forecast to stay mostly to our northwest. The eventual track of this lobe of ejecting energy may bring the showers over our area or keep Sunday dry.
Though the parent storm is forecast to travel along the northern border of the U.S., cold air will continue pouring in to our area from Sunday night through Tuesday morning as the southern part of the storm rotates through, along with windy westerly flow on Monday turning to less windy northwesterly flow on Tuesday.
Below freezing temperatures are possible for Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, so be sure to protect sensitive vegetation. And though this cold storm starts dry, there may be enough moisture for snowflakes down the to Yampa Valley floor over the Monday night period. Weather forecast models disagree on the available moisture, though, with the usually drier ECMWF, but not in this case, predicting a couple of inches of accumulating snowfall on Mt. Werner by Tuesday morning.
High temperatures will be ten to twenty degrees below our average of 70 F, with highs in the fifties for Monday and Tuesday, sixties for Wednesday and seventies returning for Thursday. After the possible snowflakes Monday night, mostly sunny skies are expected for most of the week starting on Tuesday.
There is a chance the storm may revisit us late in the work week as cold air invades the Great Plains and areas east, though at this point it looks to mostly affect areas to the east of the Continental Divide. But lots of weather to get through before that, and my next weather narrative scheduled for Sunday will fine-tune details associated with the cold air outbreak for the beginning of the upcoming work week.
Thursday forecast moved to Friday
Thursday, June 4, 2020
I will be issuing my next weather narrative on Friday due to time limitations I’ve run into today.
Weather highlights I’ll be talking about tomorrow include a warm and wet storm for Saturday, followed by a cold and dry storm to start to the work week, both accompanied by quite windy conditions.
And the cold storm will be notably so, with temperatures cold enough for snowflakes in the Yampa Valley during overnight and early mornings if there is enough moisture around. Make plans to protect sensitive vegetation for both Monday and Tuesday mornings.
