Plenty of sun and warming temperatures through the work week
Sunday, October 29, 2023
Temperatures are only in the upper twenties in the town of Steamboat Springs and ten degrees near the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort under mostly cloudy skies this Sunday mid afternoon. After near record low temperatures Monday morning, the sun returns for most of the work week and temperatures grudgingly rise from the mid thirties today and Monday toward the mid fifties by Thursday.
A ridge of high pressure is currently just off the West Coast while a deep and cold trough of low pressure extends from Hudson Bay through our area and all the way to Baja. Winds between these high and low pressure systems are from the north and northwest and are continuing to carry very cold air originally sourced from the arctic overhead.
But the accumulating precipitation associated with the wintry storm has ended even as clouds and some flurries linger in the cold and unstable flow from the northwest after leaving around three inches in town and eleven inches at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort. The arctic air mass left behind means high temperatures today will struggle to reach freezing even with peeks of sun.
The ridge of high pressure is forecast to weaken and move slowly east through the work week thanks to an active Pacific jet stream. The likely clearing skies by tonight will conspire with the fresh snow cover to produce low temperatures in the low single digits on Monday morning, approaching our low temperature record of zero degrees for the date, with the favored low lying reaching the subzero realm.
The cold start to Monday means another cold day with high temperatures in the thirties despite the abundant sunshine. But the warmer air mass associated with the approaching ridge of high pressure will allow both low and high temperatures to slowly rise through the work week with forecast low temperatures rising to the upper single digits on Tuesday morning, mid teens on Wednesday morning and approaching our average of 21 F on Thursday morning.
Likewise, the high temperatures will also rise toward our average of 50 F by Wednesday, with the high temperature in the mid forties for Halloween requiring an extra layer under the costumes of the trick-or-treaters.
The high temperatures for Thursday will even be around five degrees above average before a series of weakening Pacific storms approach our area beginning around the end of the work week. While we will see increasing clouds as soon as later Thursday, whether we see any precipitation is still being sorted out in the weather forecast models. So enjoy the sunny weather to start the work week and check back to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon for details on the coming weekend weather.
