Shower chances increase starting Monday night

Sunday, July 2, 2023

Temperatures in the Steamboat Springs area are in the mid-seventies under mostly sunny skies with breezy winds from the west this Sunday mid-afternoon. While we may touch eighty degrees today, warmer high temperatures in the low eighties along with continued breezy winds are in the forecast for the rest of the work week. Accompanying the warmer temperatures will be chances for mainly afternoon and evening showers, highest on Indepedence Day, that may kick off as soon as Monday night.

A cold area of low pressure is currently located in central Alberta while a ridge of high pressure sits over the Desert Southwest. Our area is seeing breezy winds from the west as the jet stream is funneled between these features, and those winds look to remain over our area through the work week.

The Alberta storm is forecast to move toward Hudson Bay through midweek, with a wave of cool air moving south behind the storm and toward our area by Monday night. Monday should be mostly sunny and marginally the hottest day of the week by a degree or two with temperatures reaching several degrees above our average of 81 F.

Energy and some moisture moving along the approaching cool front will bring clouds with modest chances of nocturnal, or nighttime showers on Monday night, and though Independence Day should start sunny, those modest chances remain for Tuesday afternoon and evening. The cool front won’t do much to our high temperatures, only lowering them by a degree or two, but should make the daytime breezes stronger.

Decreasing chances for showers remain on Wednesday afternoon and evening behind the front, with even less of a chance by Thursday afternoon as the afternoon breezes persist. And though Friday is looking warm and dry, another cool front is forecast to approach our area sometime during the weekend, though that may have a tough time reaching our area thanks to the strengthening ridge of high pressure to our south.

I’ll know more about that in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon. So until then, enjoy the Fourth of July celebrations, and perhaps bring a waterproof shell to guard against any showers briefly dampening outdoor activities.