Hot and dry weather to return for the workweek
Sunday, August 3, 2025
After a crisp morning with low temperatures that approached forty degrees, bluebird skies are over Steamboat Springs late this Sunday morning with temperatures only around seventy degrees, on their way to the low eighties. The comfortable temperatures today will give way to hot temperatures approaching ninety degrees for the workweek, breezy afternoon winds, periods of smoke, and near-nil precipitation chances.
I was surprised to wake up Saturday morning to the rumble of thunder, portending a more active day of weather than forecast. Rather than one weak wave on Friday, another disturbance on Saturday kept winds moving from the west-southwest, and combined with existing moisture to bring several rounds of thunderstorms that continued until sunset.
But the moisture has cleared in the dry west-northwest winds behind the disturbance, leaving a gorgeous Sunday with high temperatures forecast to approach our now-declining average of eighty-three degrees. Winds will shift to be from the southwest as an area of low pressure extending southward from a storm in the Gulf of Alaska is forced eastward by a new storm in the Bering Sea. The southern part of the low pressure, now crossing the West Coast, will be deflected northeastward by a building ridge of high pressure over the Desert Southwest.
Stronger winds associated with the pressure difference between the low pressure to our northwest and high pressure to our south will be mixed downward in the afternoons by high temperatures rising into the upper eighties starting Monday and lasting through the workweek.
Unfortunately, the NOAA Smoke Plume model shows the southwest winds carrying smoke from the Monroe Canyon wildfire in Utah, the Bravo Dragon wildfire in Grand Canyon National Park, and now, the newly formed Gifford Fire near the coast of southern California, over our area on Monday. The smoke model is run four times a day out to forty-eight hours, with future runs likely showing continued periods of smoke through the workweek.
We may see cooler temperatures around next weekend as the developing Gulf of Alaska storm moves inland, though the timing and strength of a possible cool front are uncertain at this time. Enjoy the first hot week of August, and I’ll have more details on the possible cool front next weekend in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
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