Hot and dry weather for the upcoming week
Sunday, July 5, 2020
The temperature is already 80 F in sunny Steamboat Springs this Sunday noon on the way to the mid-eighties. Building clouds, if they occur over our area, may take the edge off the heat this afternoon, though these storms, like yesterday, would likely produce more wind than rain. But today will be our last chance for any rainfall until mid-next weekend as hot, dry and sometimes breezy to windy weather is expected through the upcoming work week.
A ridge of high pressure loosely centered over the central U.S. will build westward over our area through the work week as a persistent area of storminess over the Gulf of Alaska keeps a series of storms moving through the jet stream located across the northern Rockies. While dry air and hot temperatures five to ten degrees above our average high of 80 F will be the rule this upcoming week, afternoon winds will periodically increase ahead of and along with the Gulf of Alaska storms passing to our north.
One such storm crosses the Pacific Northwest on Monday, so breezy to windy southwest flow is expected on Tuesday and possibly Wednesday as the storm passes well to our north.
Behind that storm, the ridge of high pressure to our east moves westward and over our area by the end of the work week, decreasing winds but keeping the hot temperatures around.
Additionally, another Gulf of Alaska storm is forecast to cross the Pacific Northwest mid-next weekend as a strong tropical storm moves west of the Baja peninsula. There is a chance that some moisture from the Baja storm will be drawn northeastward in the southwesterly flow ahead of the Gulf of Alaska storm, though weather forecast models disagree on whether the Gulf of Alaska storm will be strong enough for that to occur.
So there may be some rain chances by next weekend, or not, and I’ll be discussing this possibility in my next weather narrative scheduled for Thursday afternoon.
