Weather to become cooler and unsettled this week
Sunday, October 22, 2023
Temperatures are in the mid sixties with light breezes under mostly sunny skies early this Sunday afternoon in Steamboat Springs. High temperatures will remain in the sixties through midweek before a couple of strong storms from the Pacific Northwest bring much colder air and unsettled weather to our area as soon as Thursday.
A weak wave currently traveling over our area has brought a few clouds and breezes and about five degrees of cooling compared to our high temperature of 73 F yesterday at the Bob Adams airport, which was over fifteen degrees about the average of 56 F. The southern end of a splitting wave currently over northern California is forecast become an eddy by Monday as it travels first south through southern California and then east across the Mexican border through midweek, which is further south than originally forecast in my last weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
While we will not see any weather from this eddy, with high temperatures on Monday similar to today, the northern part of the wave will brush our area Monday night and knock temperatures to the low sixties on Tuesday with some modestly increased breezes and a few clouds.
Concurrently, a strong and cold storm is forecast to develop and move southward along the British Columbia today and Monday before impacting Washington and Oregon by later Tuesday. Weather forecast models have struggled mightily with this wave, and the one behind it, for the last week, but are now closer to agreeing that this first wave will swing across the Great Basin on Wednesday and approach our area as soon as Thursday.
The wave currently is forecast to weaken as it grazes our area on Thursday or Friday, but might be close enough and strong enough to bring some snow to the higher elevations and rain changing to snow in town. And weather forecast models agree on more cold air and moisture behind it, though they disagree on how much of that we see during the weekend and possibly into the following work week.
So enjoy the last of the nice days in October during the first half of the work week, and be sure to check back to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon where I’ll have more details on the coming storms.
