Some snow Tuesday and Wednesday with cold temperatures
Sunday, February 12, 2023
Temperatures are around twenty degrees at all elevations in the Steamboat Springs area under clearing skies late this Sunday morning. A couple of storms will skirt our area on Tuesday and Wednesday, with the first storm increasing clouds by Monday afternoon and bringing a passing chance of flurries. The stronger second storm looks to bring only light snow from Tuesday through Wednesday, but with much colder temperatures that will persist through Thursday.
The first relatively warm storm is currently an eddy in southern California while the second and much colder storm is in the Gulf of Alaska. The second storm is forecast to cross the Pacific Northwest coast on Monday and force the California eddy northeastward across Arizona during the day Monday and northern New Mexico Monday night.
Ahead of the eddy, temperatures today will be a bit cooler than yesterday as the overnight clouds clear behind a grazing cool front from a dry wave currently located in North Dakota. Temperatures warm on Monday as winds turn to be from the south ahead the eastward-moving eddy, along with increasing clouds by the afternoon that may produce some flurries.
The flurries may persist overnight, or not, with an inch possible by the Tuesday morning mid-mountain ski report with our southern neighbors seeing the best accumulations.
Meanwhile, the second storm is forecast to move into the Great Basin on Monday and grow colder as it mixes with some cold air from western Canada. This will cause the storm to split on Tuesday as it crosses the Great Basin, with the southern part of the storm forming an eddy over the Four Corners region by Wednesday morning.
Again, our southern neighbors will see the best accumulations, though all of Colorado will see much colder temperatures. There are a couple of factors limiting our accumulations, including the splitting storm moving around our area and a period of easterly winds on the north side of the southern part of the split later Tuesday.
Right now, it looks like light snow showers are likely during the day Tuesday as some energy from the Great Basin storm grazes our area along with possibly strong winds from the west, though later in the day the winds turn easterly and the strong down-sloping winds off the Park Range look to squash any snow showers. We could see 1-4” of accumulations by the Wednesday morning ski report.
Another chance for snowfall looks to occur Wednesday as the strongest winds from the east subside and eventually turn to be from the north and then our favorable northwest direction later Wednesday. However, the atmosphere rapidly dries, and total accumulations through the day Wednesday look again to be in the 1-4” range.
High temperatures in town look to be only in the low twenties on Tuesday, around ten degrees below our average of 31 F, and the teens on Wednesday and Thursday. Low temperatures look to be subzero on both Thursday and Friday mornings, well below our average of 5 F.
The end of the work week and the start of the long Presidents Day weekend looks to start sunny and warmer as a ridge of high pressure moves through the West behind the midweek storm and ahead of a possible stormy pattern that starts around the end of the weekend. I’ll certainly have more details about that in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
