Modest shower chances return ahead of Friday cold front
Sunday, September 17, 2023
Another spectacular late summer day is over the Steamboat Springs area this early Sunday afternoon with temperatures in the low seventies under mostly sunny skies. Some meager mosiure passing overhead will lead to some shower chances on Monday night and Tuesday afternoon and evening ahead of a mostly dry cold front for the end of the work week that will bring winds to our area starting Thursday.
A ridge of high pressure is currently over the Rocky Mountains while an eddy of low pressure spins off the California coast. As a storm now in the Gulf of Alaska moves eastward early in the work week, some moisture from the eddy will be dragged toward Colorado on Monday, and though the best precipitation has shifted south in the latest weather forecast models, we should see a chance for some light showers on Monday night and again Tuesday afternoon and evening.
Meanwhile a storm currently over the Aleutian Islands is forecast to quickly move through the Gulf of Alaska while mixing with some cold air from Alaska before approaching the Vancouver coast later Tuesday and moving south. By midweek, the storm should be over Oregon which will allow the California eddy to slingshot around first its southern end and then its eastern side.
Look for increasing winds on Thursday as what remains of the eddy moves quickly northeast through the Great Basin and grazes our area. The main storm then takes an eastward track through the Great Basin later Thursday and brings a mostly dry cold front to our area on Friday, along with continued breezy to windy conditions that may persist through a dry Saturday.
At one point last week, the storm was forecast to bring a chance of our first accumulating snow at the Steamboat Resort, but now it looks like only some sparse flakes are possible along and behind the front on Friday and Friday night.
There is a lot of uncertainty in the end of week forecast, with a high temperature range on Friday forecast between the low fifties and our average in the low seventies, so there may still be significant changes in the forecast by my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
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