Memorial Day weekend to start cool and unsettled but end nice
Thursday, May 23, 2024
After reaching the high temperature of the day of 53 F early this Thursday afternoon in Steamboat Springs, temperatures have fallen into the forties as a cool front sweeps through the area. Though there are showers around with snow at the higher elevations, they will be gone on Friday before returning wetter and stronger on Saturday afternoon and night. A cool and mostly dry Sunday is then followed by perfect barbeque weather on a warmer and dry Memorial Day.
Three cool fronts will affect our weather through the long Memorial Day weekend, with the first currently passing through our area. Skies should clear by late today behind the first front which left our high temperature for today fifteen degrees below our average of 68 F.
An elongated area of low pressure currently moving southward along the British Columbia coast is forecast to split into two waves by Friday. A ridge of high pressure ahead of the first approaching wave will briefly move overhead through Friday leading to a sunny morning and cloudy afternoon with high temperatures reaching only the low sixties.
Sun will be scarce on Saturday as the second cool front sweeps through the area during the afternoon. This front will be weaker but wetter, so wetting rains are likely in the afternoon and overnight with high temperatures struggling to reach sixty degrees.
The last front on Sunday afternoon will be quite dry and graze our area to the north, leading to another cool day with high temperatures in the low sixties, but decreasing clouds later in the day despite the chance of a stray shower.
The dry air associated with a building ridge of high pressure over the Intermountain West on Monday should bring beautiful Memorial Day weather to our area with sunny skies and high temperatures in the upper sixties. This will be an appropriate and well-timed prelude to what looks like summerlike temperatures in the mid-seventies through the last days of May.
So enjoy the long weekend, and I’ll be back Sunday afternoon with my next regularly scheduled weather narrative with more details about the weather heading into June.
