Warming temperatures this week with a couple of grazing cold fronts

Sunday, February 6, 2022

Mostly sunny skies with temperatures in the mid-twenties at the Bob Adams airport and 10 F near the top of Mt Werner this Sunday noon have overtaken the brief round of productive snowfall last night in Steamboat Springs which left 1.5” on my deck near the base of the Steamboat Ski Resort, 2.5” at mid-mountain and 5” up top. Expect warming temperatures despite a couple of grazing cold fronts this work week ahead of some possible snow heading into next weekend.

Better moisture and a stronger storm than forecast in my last weather narrative under favorable cold northwest flow produced the snowfall last night. The weather forecast models often struggle with the humidity, westward extend and strength of these storms as they travel along the eastern periphery of a western ridge of high pressure, and last night was one such example.

That western ridge of high pressure is forecast to begin to move eastward toward our area on Monday, leading to mostly sunny skies and warming temperatures around or just above our average of 30 F, but three waves of Pacific energy are forecast to round the ridge of high pressure and mix with some cool Canadian air this work week.

This is a similar setup to what we just experienced last night, so there is room for the forecast to change over the coming days depending on how far west these storm travel, but right now the forecast is for a dry cool front to graze our area on Tuesday with a slightly moister one later Wednesday. There may be just some clouds associated with the Tuesday front, with a better chance of some snow showers later Wednesday, though weather forecast models have trended weaker and further east with the midweek front. As was the case last night, there is still time for this to change!

The third cold front heading into next weekend looks more promising though, with this morning’s model runs bringing a modest event overhead, even as one model run last night kept all the weather action to our east. So stay tuned to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon where I should have a better idea of the potential for more snow heading into next weekend.