Temperatures to warm for the weekend after a fall-like Friday
Thursday, September 12, 2024
After an intense early afternoon thunderstorm yesterday dropped temperatures ten degrees in ten minutes and twenty degrees in about forty-five minutes, along with almost a half-inch of rain near the Steamboat Ski Resort, mostly sunny skies with temperatures near eighty degrees are over the Steamboat Springs area this breezy Thursday afternoon. The winds are in advance of a grazing cold front tonight that will bring a fall-like chill to the air on Friday under sunny skies before temperatures rebound under continued mostly sunny skies for much of the weekend.
A large area of low pressure over the West is centered over northern Montana while a storm is brewing in the Gulf of Alaska and a tropical storm approaches southern Baja. The Montana storm was deflected to our northeast by the summertime ridge of high pressure over the eastern half of North America, save for the remnants of former hurricane Francine now spinning over the southern Mississippi Valley. Gusty winds from the southwest along the southern part of the Montana storm will end as a cold front brushes our area tonight, dropping Friday morning low temperatures toward freezing, around five degrees below our average of 37 F, and perhaps below that in the favored low-lying areas of the Yampa Valley near river drainages.
Tomorrow will be a bright sunny day, but it will feel fall-like after the crisp morning start and high temperatures struggling to reach seventy degrees, about five degrees below our average. But temperatures quickly recover by a mostly sunny Saturday reaching several degrees above average behind the departing storm.
Unfortunately, smoke is forecast to be carried from the Line wildfire in southern California and assorted wildfires in Idaho over our area for hazy skies starting today and continuing into the weekend. Please check the latest NOAA smoke plume forecast model, which is run four times a day out to forty-eight hours, for the latest guidance.
Meanwhile, the Gulf of Alaska storm is forecast to ingest cold air from Alaska and move southward along the West Coast through the weekend, reaching northern California by Monday. As the storm moves southward, moisture from the Baja storm is drawn northward in the southwest winds ahead of the storm. It trickles into our area by Sunday afternoon, bringing only a slight chance for an afternoon storm with continued above-average temperatures.
Next week will hold a fair bit of weather excitement as the Alaska storm approaches our area early in the workweek, followed by an even colder storm later in the week. Enjoy the numbered late-summer days of the weekend, and check back to my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon for more details on the active weather next week.
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