Showers chances return for Sunday

Thursday, September 7, 2023

Temperatures are in the mid-seventies with nary a cloud in the sky early this Thursday afternoon in Steamboat Springs. After another couple of days of similarly gorgeous weather, shower chances return on Sunday as a weak cool front grazes our area.

This past weekend saw our first storm from the northwest this season along with a cold front that blasted through our area Monday morning around 10 am followed by a day of showers starting at noon. I’ve included a time lapse of the view from Thunderhead between 6:20 am and 11:40 am Tuesday morning that shows the low clouds and fog encroaching on the town of Steamboat Springs as cool air rushed down the Elk River drainage before receding and lifting and eventually turning into some shallow fair weather cumulus clouds as the sun heated the valley floor.

Currently, a fairly flat ridge of high pressure is centered over the Rockies while a weak storm is located off the Pacific Northwest coast and a strong storm is located over Alaska. The Pacific northwest storm is forecast to move across Montana on Friday and mix with some cool air from the northern latitudes on Saturday. Additionally, some Pacific energy and moisture is forecast to pass south of the Alaska storm today and eventually move over our area on Sunday while mixing with some of that cool air to our northeast.

Before any of that cool air makes it to our area as early as noon on Sunday, look for another couple of gorgeous days of weather Friday and Saturday similar to today, but a bit warmer with high temperatures around eighty degrees, about five degrees above our average of 76 F.

But shower chances will appear on Sunday as the weak cool from grazes our area, perhaps as early as noon and lasting into the evening. However, these showers and the cool front will be nothing like what occurred last Monday, with showers being far lighter and more scattered and high temperatures falling to the low seventies.

These cooler temperatures look to stick around into the next work week along with a mix of sun and clouds as weak waves of Pacific energy and moisture continue to move overhead from the northwest. Weather forecast models disagree on what follows for the rest of the work week with the European ECMWF reintroducing some showery weather around midweek while the American GFS keeps us dry.

So enjoy the spectacular start to the weekend, and be sure to check back to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon to see what weather we may see next week.

• Posted at 1:36:10 PM in Steamboat forecast discussion
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