Pleasant Memorial Day weekend to see increasing shower chances by Sunday
Thursday, May 22, 2025
Mid-seventy degree temperatures, breezes, and mostly sunny skies are over Steamboat Springs this Thursday mid-afternoon. The pleasant weather will continue through the long Memorial Day weekend, with only slight chances for a passing afternoon storm on Saturday. By Sunday, those chances increase and persist for Memorial Day as a weak storm moving through the area drops high temperatures to around seventy degrees.
A weak storm approaching the West Coast is being pushed along by a developing stronger storm in the Gulf of Alaska. The weak storm is forecast to grow weaker as it moves through the Great Basin on Saturday and splits. We should see a couple of beautiful days on Friday and Saturday with high temperatures persisting in the mid-seventies, above our average 68 F on Friday and 69 F on Saturday. Friday will be sunnier and breezier, with a chance of a passing shower Saturday afternoon and evening as the storm approaches.
While we will still see likely sunny mornings on Sunday and Memorial Day, clouds will increase after noon with a good chance of afternoon and evening showers as the parent storm moves overhead. Breezes will decrease due to light winds around the storm’s center, except for gusty winds around the thunderstorms, and high temperatures will cool a bit and fall toward average.
As the sun moves higher in the sky as summer approaches, cold storms will have an increasingly difficult time displacing the warm air in their path, and such will be the case with the approaching Gulf of Alaska storm. It is forecast to significantly weaken as it crosses the West Coast on Memorial Day, only bringing chances of late-day storms as temperatures rebound back to the mid-seventies for the rest of the workweek.
Enjoy the beautiful start to the Memorial Day weekend, and check back for more details on the weak storm to end the weekend in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
Strong cold front on the doorstep
Sunday, May 18, 2025
After sunny morning skies, temperatures peaked near sixty degrees at noon this Sunday in Steamboat Springs. The spotty showers with more wind than rain so far this afternoon will be replaced with steadier precipitation this evening as the cold front passes. Much colder temperatures on Monday with significant high-elevation snow and possible snowflakes in town will be followed by warming and drying through the workweek, with seventy-degree temperatures returning by Thursday.
A cold storm in the Great Basin is on our doorstep and will bring a cold front through our area by early evening. Spotty showers ahead of the front are producing more wind than rain so far, as the precipitation evaporates in the dry air from the Desert Southwest that was carried over our area in the southwest winds ahead of the storm yesterday, but that should change later this afternoon as the cold front approaches.
Snowfall rates as high as an inch per hour could make travel over Rabbit Ears Pass difficult at times tonight after the front passes in the early evening, with 3-6” of snow expected at and above 9000′ by sunrise, with lesser accumulations down to 8000′ and snowflakes in town. An additional 1-4” above 9000′ are possible through the day as winds transition to be from our favorable northwest direction, helped by a reinforcing surge of cool air during the day that will keep the temperature in town around fifty degrees, well below our average of 67 F.
A series of incoming Pacific storms to our north will be deflected by increasingly hot air in the Desert Southwest, keeping our area south of the storm track through the workweek, which is seasonably appropriate. Temperatures on Tuesday will warm into the upper-fifties with a chance of some stray showers in the moderately unstable post-frontal environment. But mostly sunny skies are forecast for the rest of the workweek with temperatures in the upper-sixties on Wednesday and mid-seventies for Thursday and Friday.
The gorgeous weather is forecast to continue into the Memorial Day weekend, with uncertainty for the end of the weekend around the track of a storm forecast to develop in the Gulf of Alaska. So be prepared for another dose of short-lived wintry weather tonight and Monday, enjoy an increasingly nice workweek, and check back for more details on the holiday weekend weather in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
Storm to end tonight ahead of another for the end of the weekend
Thursday, May 15, 2025
Temperatures are in the mid-forties under cloudy skies this Thursday mid-afternoon in Steamboat Springs behind an early afternoon thunderstorm. Good precipitation chances will continue through midnight before we see mostly sunny mornings and warmer temperatures through the weekend. Afternoon thunderstorm chances will linger on Friday and Saturday before the next storm brings good precipitation chances and cooler temperatures from Sunday afternoon through Monday.
After a beautiful start to the workweek, with high temperatures above seventy-five degrees on Monday, high temperatures plummeted into the low-fifties on Wednesday behind a cold storm from the Gulf of Alaska. We went from temperatures representative of mid-June to mid-April in just a couple of days, which is not uncommon for the mercurial spring season.
Winter Park reported nine inches of snow this morning and Arapahoe Basin reported seven inches for that classic mid-May powder day. We saw snow above 8000′ and a couple of tenths of an inch of rain in town, with a low temperature of 21 F at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort this morning. The cool temperatures and showers, with sometimes moderate to heavy rain and small hail, are forecast to continue through midnight in the favorable moist and unstable northwest behind the storm, now moving northeast through the eastern Dakotas.
A ridge of high pressure is building over the West Coast ahead of another strong storm brewing over the Aleutian Islands, which has incorporated some sub-tropical moisture to form a weak atmospheric river. The storm will push the ridge eastward as it moves across the West Coast early Saturday, warming temperatures into the upper-fifties on Friday and mid-sixties on Saturday, right around our average of 66 F.
Mornings should start mostly sunny, with only a small chance of late-day thunderstorms on Friday, but a better chance on Saturday as a wave of energy and moisture ejecting from the landfalling storm moves overhead.
Take advantage of the nice start to Sunday as the storm rotates through the Great Basin, first bringing increasing clouds by noon that will cap our high temperatures in the low-sixties, and then a cold front in the afternoon or evening, accompanied by precipitation.
The storm will be wetter than the departing storm, pinwheeling through Colorado on Monday and bringing additional snow to the higher elevations and rain in town. While showers may linger in our favorable northwest flow behind the storm on Tuesday, temperatures will begin to rise by Wednesday under mostly sunny skies, perhaps reaching back into the mid-seventies by Friday and next weekend.
So enjoy the break between storms that will begin on Friday and last through at least the first half of Sunday, and I’ll have more details on what will be a soggy start to the workweek in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
Warm and breezy start to the workweek to be followed by a cold front Tuesday night
Sunday, May 11, 2025
Temperatures are already seventy degrees this Mother’s Day at noon in Steamboat Springs with mostly sunny skies. Despite clouds this afternoon that may produce some gusty winds, temperatures will approach seventy-five degrees. Increasing breezes with continued warm temperatures will start the work week ahead of an approaching storm that will bring a cold front Tuesday night, followed by precipitation chances from Wednesday afternoon into Thursday.
The ridge of high pressure over the Rocky Mountains early in the weekend, responsible for the spectacular Saturday weather, is being pushed to the upper Midwest by a cold and strong storm moving into the Pacific Northwest. The storm is forecast to move through the Great Basin on Tuesday and split, with breezy southwest winds ahead of the storm carrying dry air from the Desert Southwest over our area on Monday and Tuesday. Monday will be the warmest day of the week, with high temperatures cresting seventy-five degrees, over ten degrees above our average of 64 F, while Tuesday will see a few degrees of cooling.
A strong cold front associated with the southern part of the split storm will move through our area Tuesday night, dropping the high temperatures on Wednesday into the low-fifties, over ten degrees below average and twenty-five degrees cooler than Monday. A reinforcing surge of cool air will be accompanied by enough moisture Wednesday afternoon to bring a good chance of precipitation lasting into Thursday, with around a tenth of an inch forecast for town and 1-4” of snow above 8000′. Depending on how much cool air and moisture make it into the storm, there may even be snowflakes in town early Thursday morning.
The cool weather will stick around as we transition into a period of northwest flow, with high temperatures moving into the mid-fifties on Thursday and the low-sixties on Friday. The weekend forecast is uncertain despite the weather forecast models agreeing on the general pattern, as the timing and strength of waves moving through the northwest flow will determine shower chances. I’ll have more details about that in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
Afternoon showers to bookend a pleasantly warm weekend
Thursday, May 8, 2025
Mostly sunny skies this morning over Steamboat Springs have yielded to some brief rain showers this Thursday afternoon, with the earlier sixty-degree temperatures falling into the upper fifties. Temperatures will warm toward a pleasant seventy-five degrees this weekend, with afternoon showers most likely on Friday and Mother’s Day.
Though the past storm system was close, its further-than-predicted southern trajectory limited precipitation in our area to only several hundredths of an inch. However, the Front Range and southeastern plains received the forecast beneficial rainfall, and Loveland ended up the Colorado ski area winner with fifteen inches over two days.
A ridge of high pressure ahead of a strong and cold storm over the Gulf of Alaska will build over the West this weekend, bringing warming temperatures reaching toward seventy degrees on Friday and mid-seventies on the weekend, about ten degrees above our average of 63 F.
While we should see mostly sunny mornings through the weekend, moisture left behind by the last storm will bring another round of afternoon and evening thunderstorm chances on Friday, similar to today. Saturday will be the driest day before the Gulf of Alaska storm begins to approach the Pacific Northwest coast, modestly increasing moisture by Sunday afternoon and again allowing for a chance of afternoon and evening thunderstorms.
The storm is forecast to cross the West Coast on Monday, bringing increasing breezes from the southwest to start the work week with continued temperatures in the seventies. So enjoy yet another beautiful weekend, and check back Sunday afternoon for my next regularly scheduled weather narrative for details on what we may expect from the approaching midweek storm.
