Showers likely ahead of cool front to arrive Wednesday
Sunday, September 1, 2024
Steamboat Springs is enjoying a gorgeous Labor Day weekend, with temperatures approaching eighty degrees under cloudless skies this Sunday noon. A trickle of monsoon moisture will bring some clouds later today and more clouds on Monday afternoon, with only the slightest chance of an afternoon shower on Labor Day. A passing storm will bring a better chance of showers later Tuesday and Wednesday as a cool front sweeps through the region before sunny weather returns for the end of the work week and heading into the following weekend.
A ridge of high pressure over the West is flanked by broad areas of low pressure over Hudson Bay and the Gulf of Alaska, and an eddy of low pressure just off the northern California coast. A wave of energy moving through the Gulf of Alaska will force both the eddy and ridge of high pressure eastward, eventually merging with the eddy on Labor Day as it crosses the West Coast.
As the high pressure moves east, monsoonal moisture will be carried northward by southerly winds on the backside of the high. This will be nothing like the monsoon events of August, which ended up leaving almost a half-inch more moisture than our monthly average of 1.8”, but will be more of a trickle, creating some clouds this afternoon and more clouds and a small chance of a passing shower later on Labor Day. Clouds and showers will be more likely closer to the source of the monsoon moisture to our south.
But the clouds won’t derail our high temperatures, expected to be in the low-eighties through Tuesday, almost five degrees above our falling average of 78 F. By late Tuesday, the eddy is forecast to be moving through Idaho, bringing a better chance of some late-day showers that could last through the night.
As the eddy moves through Wyoming on Wednesday, a cool front will graze our area, continuing the chance of showers and dropping our high temperature into the mid-seventies. There is dry air behind the front, so showers should quickly end, though there is some weather forecast model disagreement on whether that occurs in the afternoon or evening.
Clearing skies after a cool front means we can look forward to a cool Thursday morning with temperatures in the upper-thirties, around our average of 39 F, similar to the setup last Friday morning when the low temperature reached a chilly 36 F behind a grazing cool front. But the sunny days return with continued high temperatures in the mid-seventies, and look to last into the coming weekend as a ridge of high pressure rebuilds over the West behind the passing midweek disturbance.
Enjoy the pleasant weather for the rest of the long Labor Day weekend, and check back to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon to see how long the dry weather may stick around.
