Springlike weather turns cooler and unsettled by midweek
Sunday, March 7, 2021
Temperatures are 36 F at the Bob Adams airport and 34 F at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort late this sunny Sunday morning on their way toward fifty in town. More warm temperatures are forecast for the beginning of the work week before a pattern change turns our weather unsettled by Wednesday which persists into next weekend.
Southwest flow ahead of a large storm currently in the Gulf of Alaska has brought dry air, sunny skies and warm temperatures to the Steamboat Springs area this weekend. The storm is forecast to drop southward along the West Coast early in the work week after mixing with some cold air sourced from Baffin Bay west of Greenland.
Our temperatures will stay ten to fifteen degrees above our average of 39 F from today through Tuesday, with the sunny skies briefly interrupted during the first half of Monday as a weak and moisture-starved wave south of the Gulf of Alaska storm is quickly escorted past our area by brisk winds from the southwest.
Enjoy the beautiful springlike weather preview as a wave of energy and moisture is forecast to eject out of the southward-moving main storm and move over our area Tuesday night, beginning a stretch of cooler and unsettled weather with temperatures closer to average.
The leading wave is relatively weak with only light snow showers expected Tuesday night and Wednesday, with perhaps an inch reported Wednesday morning at mid-mountain and another several inches reported during the day.
The main storm is forecast to continue to move southward along the West Coast on Wednesday before turning inland and entering the Desert Southwest on Thursday. The weather forecast becomes more nebulous by the end of the work week as additional hard-to-time and hard-to-place waves of energy and moisture eject out of the main storm. There is loose weather forecast model agreement that we may pick up an additional several inches of snow around Thursday and Thursday night, but significant accumulations look unlikely.
Weather forecast model disagree about how fast the main storm traverses the Desert Southwest, with the American GFS quite a bit faster than the slower and more plodding European ECMWF. While additional minor accumulations of an inch or two are likely on Friday, our snowfall potential for the weekend will depend on how quickly the main storm moves across the Desert Southwest.
So we may see an additional inch or two over the weekend if the storm moves faster, or just cloudy and cool weather before a slower-moving storm brings that light snowfall to our area early in the following work week. And for those traveling to the Front Range late in the work week or during the weekend, it does look they will be in store for a significant precipitation event as easterly winds carry moisture-rich air first over the Eastern Plains incline and eventually over the foothills.
Stay tuned to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon where I’ll discuss the evolution of that Desert Southwest storm and another possible storm for our area during the next work week.
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