Warming temperatures for the weekend with unsettled weather on Saturday
Thursday, April 6, 2023
Temperatures are near twenty degrees in the town of Steamboat Springs and mid-teens near the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort on this mostly sunny Thursday mid-morning. Temperatures will warm today as the early-April sun modifies the arctic air mass that was over our area on Tuesday and Wednesday. More warming on another mostly sunny Friday will be followed by clouds on Saturday along with a chance of afternoon and evening showers. These clouds should dissipate by Sunday afternoon before long-awaited springtime weather appears for most of the work week with mostly sunny skies and temperatures in the sixties.
The storm this past week did bring the cold, though the brunt of the 13” reported at mid-mountain from Monday night through this morning occurred on Tuesday night rather than Monday night as originally forecast. While we missed setting record cold temperatures during the storm, the snowpack continued to build, and we are still in record territory for the amount of water stored in the Yampa-White-Little Snake basin since April 1, with equivalent liquid water 150% of the 30 year median.
A transient ridge of high pressure will move through our area today and Friday ahead of a weakening storm currently in the Gulf of Alaska. Temperatures will warm to the mid-thirties today in town, still fifteen degrees below our average of 52 F, but approach that mark tomorrow and the weekend. Mostly sunny skies on Friday should give way to clouds and a small chance of some passing afternoon and evening showers on Saturday as that weakening Gulf of Alaska storm moves overhead, but the clouds should dissipate during the day Sunday ahead of a quintessential stretch of springtime weather lasting for much of the following work week.
Temperatures in the sixties are likely starting Monday as a large ridge of high pressure builds ahead of a strong storm currently developing near the Aleutian Islands, with Tuesday currently looking like the warmest day of the upcoming week. The stretch of springtime weather looks to be interrupted near the end of the work week and the Closing Weekend of the Steamboat Ski Resort as that Aleutian storm makes its way inland. I’ll certainly have more on how that may play out in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
