Nice spring weather for the weekend after cold front later today

Thursday, April 27, 2023

After a mostly sunny Thursday morning in Steamboat Springs, winds have picked up and the skies have clouded over on a fifty degree afternoon ahead of a cold front expected later today. After some minor precipitation tonight and cooler temperatures for Friday, pleasant spring weather is on tap for the weekend and looks to hang around to start the following work week.

Before getting to the weather forecast, those record coldest high temperatures I discussed in the weather narratives last Sunday and last Thursday were finally made official when the high temperature last Thursday of only 31 F bested the previous record of 34 F in 1927 and the high temperature last Saturday of only 29 F bested the previous record of 35 in 1909. And we missed the low temperature record of 8 F recorded in 1982 by only two degrees, highlighting a cold week in a cold winter.

A brief blast of wintry weather from the current weather pattern is on our northern doorstep as a cold front currently in southern Wyoming barrels toward our area later today. We may see some showers ahead of the front before sharply colder temperatures and several hours of spotty precipitation accompany the front later this afternoon or early this evening. While mid-mountain at the Steamboat Ski Resort may see up to an inch or two of accumulation, town will see snowflakes with trace accumulations on the rapidly appearing grassy surfaces.

Friday will be a cool day with high temperatures only in the forties, around ten degrees below our average of 56 F. But mostly sunny skies under a strong late April sun will certainly take the chill off.

Very nice spring weather arrives in force starting Saturday as a ridge of high pressure moves across the West ahead of a couple of merging storm systems currently near the Gulf of Alaska. A stubborn area of low pressure over the central part of the country will keep the ridge from moving to the east, so even as temperatures warm to average on Saturday and about five degrees above average on Sunday, waves of moisture rotating around the ridge of high pressure from the northwest will bring periods of clouds, with even some showers possible starting Sunday afternoon.

Those afternoon shower chances remain on an even warmer Monday, and if that sounds like spring, wait until Tuesday when that Gulf of Alaska storm system is forecast to approach the West Coast. Winds are forecast to shift to be from the southwest ahead of the storm and carry subtropical moisture over our area for increasing rain shower chances, perhaps to as high as 10,000′.

So enjoy what will almost certainly be a very pleasant spring weekend with near normal temperatures for a change, and I’ll be back Sunday afternoon with a look at how that West Coast storm evolves and what it means for our weather the following work week.