Seasonable fall weather ahead
Thursday, October 13, 2022
Partly sunny skies and moderately breezy winds with temperatures right at sixty degrees are over the Steamboat Springs area this Thursday mid-afternoon. The weather forecast for this weekend does not change much save for a weak cool front on Saturday that may bring some increased breezes and clouds, but do little to affect our temperatures.
The persistent ridge of high pressure over the West is still being anchored between areas of low pressure over eastern North America and the eastern Pacific. Additionally, an eddy cut off from the jet stream is spinning just off the coast of southern California.
Our breezy weather is due to the proximity of the jet stream which represents the boundary between warm and cold air; in our case the warm air over the West and the cold air over eastern North America. Since we have different air masses on either side of our area, neither will dominate so expect seasonable temperatures within five degrees of our average high of 60 F and average low of 27 F through the weekend.
A small Pacific disturbance currently traveling over the top of the ridge is forecast to mix with some cold air associated with vortex of low pressure currently centered just north of the Great Lakes and bring a cool front through our area on Saturday. Initially it looked like a grazing cool front, but in an odd atmospheric dance, the energy associated with the southern end of that cool front now looks to move westward and encourage the California eddy to move across the Desert Southwest through the weekend and early next week.
So while we will see increased clouds on Saturday that may last into Sunday morning, not much change is forecast for the temperatures or breezes. There is a chance that clouds could hang around through noon on Sunday depending upon the interaction between the eddy and cool front, though any precipitation is currently forecast to be confined to our east and more so south.
The ridge of high pressure is forecast to move eastward through the following work week for more mostly sunny skies and temperatures a bit above average. The fate of the ridge of high pressure by the end of the work week is uncertain at this time, with the nice fall weather continuing if the ridge stays intact and a possibly stormy pattern change if the ridge breaks down. I hope to know more about that in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
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