Tuesday to be the warmest and driest day of the workweek
Sunday, August 18, 2024
Temperatures are in the comfortable mid-seventies under mostly sunny skies early this Sunday mid-afternoon in Steamboat Springs. We should see a pleasant day today with showers holding off until mid-evening before becoming more sporadic overnight. Storm chances will hang around on Monday before taking a break on Tuesday, resuming on Wednesday and continuing through the rest of the work week.
A ridge of high pressure over the Rockies is sandwiched between areas of low pressure centered just off the Pacific Northwest coast and the Ohio River Valley. Monsoonal moisture has been carried over our area from the south thanks to the southerly winds on the backside of the clockwise circulation around the high, with only some light and scattered showers around town starting late yesterday afternoon.
A well-defined wave rotating around the high is currently entering Utah and will be over our area around mid-evening. So look for dry skies this afternoon with high temperatures in the low-eighties, right around our falling average of 81 F, before the showers associated with the wave start this mid-evening and become more sporadic after midnight.
More thunderstorms are possible on Monday after noon, though short-range models currently have the best activity just to our south. A downturn in storm activity is expected on Tuesday as the southern end of the ridge briefly squirts westward thanks to the strengthening of the Ohio River Valley low pressure area, temporarily severing the tap of monsoonal moisture. Look for low storm chances with plenty of sun and high temperatures a few degrees above average.
Meanwhile, a strong storm over the Bering Sea has incorporated some cold air from the North Pole, and will split as it moves across the Gulf of Alaska early in the week. The southern end of the storm is forecast to drop along the British Columbia coast through midweek which will dislodge the existing low pressure area over the Pacific Northwest across the northern Rockies and nudge the high pressure ridge back to the east.
Monsoonal moisture will once again be carried overhead in the southerly winds on the backside of the high pressure, and will conspire with the southern end of the northeastward-moving Pacific Northwest storm to create good chances of strong storms by Wednesday afternoon and continuing overnight.
Trailing energy will keep the storm chances around through at least Thursday and Friday as temperatures cool into the mid-seventies.
There is weather forecast model uncertainty for the weekend related to how strong the British Columbia storm will be and how quickly it moves east and toward our area. A faster storm will clear the moisture from our area early in the weekend while a slower storm may allow the moisture and storm chances to stick around on Saturday. In any event, the storm looks strong enough to bring the first fall-like cool front through our area sometime next weekend.
So enjoy the summery start to the work week, keep your Gore-Tex handy for the showers starting midweek, and check back to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon for more details on our first fall-like cool front of the season.
