Good rain chances to arrive Thursday
Sunday, June 29, 2025
Temperatures are in the low eighties, on their way to the mid-eighties, with mostly sunny skies this Sunday mid-afternoon in Steamboat Springs. Some moisture associated with a storm to our north may allow for an afternoon or evening thunderstorm that would produce more wind than rain, ahead of more hot and dry weather through midweek. An approaching storm will bring good chances of rain on Thursday, with late-day storm chances possibly persisting on Independence Day and the start of the weekend.
A ridge of high pressure centered over the Desert Southwest is bordered by a storm moving through the Dakotas and a storm forming off the coast of central California. The storm to our north has dragged a modicum of moisture overhead, increasing the chance of an afternoon or evening thunderstorm today that would produce more wind than rain, as any precipitation evaporates before reaching the ground.
The good news is that breezes have shifted from the southwest to the west and northwest, clearing the air of haze from the France Canyon wildfire in southern Utah. As the Dakotas storm and the California storm both move eastward to start the workweek, the Desert Southwest ridge expands northward, keeping the hot and dry weather around through midweek. High temperatures just above eighty-five degrees on Monday and Tuesday, compared to our average of eighty degrees, will be followed by upper eighties on Wednesday as winds turn southwesterly ahead of the California storm.
Wetting rains are currently promised Thursday afternoon and evening as moisture from the Mexican Plateau is first carried northward by southerly winds ahead of the California storm before being lifted by the storm itself as it moves over our area later Thursday.
There is weather forecast model uncertainty regarding whether the storm remains cohesive, as forecast by the European ECMWF, or breaks apart in a piecemeal fashion, as forecast by the American GFS, which would prolong the shower chances into Independence Day and the weekend.
Enjoy the prelude to the long holiday weekend, and I’ll have more details on the increasing moisture for the end of the workweek in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
