Nice weather returns after midweek
Sunday, March 14, 2021
After a windy morning with snow showers, some peeks of sun are over the Steamboat Springs area on this still windy Sunday afternoon. A wave of energy and moisture rotating around that massive storm to our east will approach our area from the north Monday morning and bring continued snow showers through the day. Another much smaller storm passes south of our area on Wednesday, though we will still see a chance of some light snow showers later Tuesday and parts of Wednesday. Much warmer and dry weather returns for Thursday through most of Saturday before another possibly significant storm is currently advertised to start near the end of next weekend.
The Steamboat Ski Resort reported 5” of new snow at mid-mountain and 6” up top this morning, with an additional 1.5” falling at mid-mountain as of 1 pm and 3” up top, regardless of what the wind-scoured Powdercam and Mid-mountain Powdercam indicated. While the storm was slow to get going, a standout from the ongoing storm early this afternoon includes a total of 31”, and counting, near Aspen Springs by Black Hawk.
Snow showers will end for a brief time this evening before picking up again during Monday thanks to a lobe of energy spinning around the storm to our east. We could see 2-5” between sunrise and sunset on Monday which would be reported on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, a stretched incoming storm currently along the Pacific Northwest coast is forecast to split and form an eddy on Monday that moves down the Sierras and crosses the Desert Southwest on Tuesday. This storm looked far more promising when it was forecast to stay intact as discussed in last Thursday’s weather narrative, but now that southern eddy looks to be too far south to bring significant snow to our area. However, in an interesting meteorological dance, a piece of the current storm will break away to its west and be incorporated into the eddy later Tuesday, and this will bring the possibility of light snow showers later Tuesday and some of Wednesday, with minor accumulations.
Springlike weather returns for Thursday, Friday and Saturday as a ridge of high pressure moves through the Rockies ahead of another major storm forecast to develop in the Gulf of Alaska during the work week. We’ll see lots of sun, along with some clouds and high temperatures near our average of 42 F on Thursday, and ten or even more degrees above average on Friday and Saturday.
The next storm has the possibility of being significant, though there are large differences between the weather forecast models, as is expected a week out. Stay tuned to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon for more details on this storm and the weather it may bring to our area.
