Spring fever arrives in Steamboat Springs
Sunday, April 9, 2023
Temperatures are near freezing at all elevations in the Steamboat Springs area as clouds depart on this Easter Sunday morning. A stretch of beautiful spring weather will continue into midweek before clouds and winds increase ahead of a storm for the end of the work week that looks to bring snow back to our area.
A large area of low pressure currently over the eastern Pacific extends from Alaska southward halfway to Hawaii. Warm air carried northward ahead of the storm will force a ridge of high pressure to build over the West through midweek, bringing mostly sunny skies and warm temperatures.
While high temperatures will approach our average of 52 F today, they should approach 60 F on Monday and mid to upper-sixties on Tuesday and Wednesday with lots of sunshine for a beautiful stretch of spring days.
Meanwhile a storm currently near Kamchatka is forecast to move across the northern Pacific and dislodge the area of low pressure over the eastern Pacific by midweek. The low pressure area will evolve in a complex manner as it enters the Great Basin on Thursday as waves of energy move through, making for an uncertain end-of-week forecast.
Right now, we may see a batch of clouds and increasing winds from the southwest later Wednesday as the storm approaches. Thursday will be the last day of this stretch of spring weather with high temperatures dropping into the upper fifties as clouds briefly dissipate ahead of a strong cold front that should move through later Thursday or early Friday.
A rain-snow mix in town during the day Friday should turn to all snow by Friday night as that Kamchatka storm finally moves through the area of low pressure which will be overhead, with high temperatures in town falling to the low forties, between ten and fifteen degrees below our rising average of 54 F.
Enjoy this gorgeous stretch of hard-to-come-by spring weather and I’ll be back with my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon with more details on our next wintry storm. At this point, with 442”of snowfall at mid-mountain so far this season, there is a chance we can reach the 450” milestone by Closing Day.
