Temperatures to warm through the rest of this year ahead of precipitation chances for the New Year
Sunday, December 28, 2025
A brisk winter day with mostly sunny afternoon skies is over Steamboat Springs this Sunday, with temperatures in the low twenties in town and only two degrees at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort at mid-afternoon. After a foot of fresh powder fell at mid-mountain and fifteen inches up top, warming temperatures and mostly sunny skies will close out 2025, with precipitation chances returning for the start of the New Year.
A ridge of high pressure is building over the West behind the departing storm and ahead of an elongating trough of low pressure extending southwestward from Alaska to the south of the Aleutian Islands. Clear skies tonight, light winds, and fresh snow will create ideal conditions for subzero temperatures in town, below our average of four degrees.
Dry air under the ridge will make for a beautiful three days to close out 2025, with temperatures warming into the upper-twenties on Monday. Weather forecast models often overestimate the amount of warming after snowy intrusions of arctic air, as the low sun angle and highly reflective snow surface minimize daytime heating. But if the models are to be believed, we could see upper thirties on Tuesday and back to the low forties by Wednesday, well above our average of twenty-eight degrees, with continued mostly sunny daytime skies.
Meanwhile, waves of cold air moving southwestward from Alaska and eastward from Siberia will shift the Aleutian trough eastward into the Gulf of Alaska, forcing further elongation to the south. Additionally, the southern part of the current storm, left behind to our southwest, will merge with a wave moving southwestward over Nevada and form an eddy off the coast of southern California by Monday, ingesting subtropical moisture as it vacations there for a few days.
Eventually, the moist and warm eddy will be forced eastward by the original Aleutian trough now over the eastern Pacific, though how the trough evolves and how it interacts with the eddy are uncertain. Most weather forecast models force the weakening eddy across the Desert Southwest around midweek, bringing increasing clouds on New Year’s Day and precipitation chances by the evening.
Snow levels will rise with the warm temperatures, eventually reaching about 7,500′ by Thursday afternoon, so any precipitation will probably be liquid in town and modest on the hill. What happens behind that will depend upon the evolution of the eastern Pacific trough, with some models bringing a portion of that trough over our area later in the weekend. If that occurs, pleasant weather is expected for most of the first weekend of 2026, followed by unsettled weather to start the next workweek.
Enjoy the results of the game-changing weekend storm at the Steamboat Ski Resort this week, and I’ll have more details on expected snowfall amounts by Friday and the weekend outlook in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
