Warm and beautiful weekend ahead
Thursday, February 5, 2026
Bluebird skies are over Steamboat Springs on this Thursday at noon, with temperatures in town approaching forty degrees, on their way to the upper forties, and a shockingly warm forty degrees at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort. Beautiful weather is forecast to continue through the weekend, with cool nights and mostly sunny, unseasonably warm days, interrupted only by some clouds for overnight Friday and possibly later Saturday. The well-advertised pattern change for next week has become more uncertain in the latest medium-range forecasts.
A ridge of high pressure over the West is under assault by a series of Pacific storms strewn across the Pacific between eastern Siberia and the Aleutian Islands. The ridge will hold firm through the weekend, with moisture trapped beneath it bringing some clouds Friday night. Clouds may also appear later Saturday as a splitting wave moves through it, depending on how much energy is partitioned into the northern part of the split and its eventual strength.
The 2015 record high temperature of 53 degrees on Friday, well above the freezing average, may be challenged, as well as the 51-degree records set in 2025 on Saturday, and 2015 on Sunday. Tonight will be the coolest night, around our 7-degree average, before the clouds on Friday and possibly Saturday night insulate the surface like a blanket, keeping low temperatures in the teens or twenties.
But what about our next storm? Weather forecast models through last night had agreed on a pattern change around Tuesday, due to a chunk of cold air from eastern Siberia moving across the Northern Pacific and merging with an atmospheric river associated with a storm south of the Aleutian Islands. As of this morning, they now forecast the Siberian wave merging with some cold air moving southward across Alaska, forcing the storm to move south off the West Coast rather than penetrating inland, delaying the arrival of cold air.
We may still see some snowfall around Tuesday and Wednesday as the atmospheric river crosses the West Coast late in the weekend, possibly joined by a wave ejected from the Aleutian storm, though southwesterly winds ahead of the original Siberian storm may or may not push that moisture and energy to our north.
There is too much uncertainty to predict snowfall chances for next week, especially considering this morning’s weather forecast model changes. So enjoy the warm and gorgeous weekend ahead, and I’ll have an update on the latest model gyrations in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
Pleasant workweek weather to be interrupted by high-elevation snow chances starting later Tuesday
Sunday, February 1, 2026
A lovely sunny day is over Steamboat Springs this Sunday at noon, with temperatures in the mid-thirties in town, on the way to the upper-forties, and mid-twenties at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort. A couple of grazing waves will bring cooler, but still seasonably warm, temperatures through midweek, with clouds on Monday morning and some snow chances starting later Tuesday, lasting into Wednesday morning. Temperatures rebound by Thursday with a nice start to the 113th Steamboat Winter Carnival weekend.
A ridge of high pressure over the West, bringing the gorgeous day today, is sandwiched between a cold trough of low pressure over eastern North America and a series of storms gestating between the Aleutian Islands and the Gulf of Alaska. A couple of these storms are forecast to round the top of the ridge, the first bringing only cloudiness on Monday morning and the second, a chance for high-elevation snow showers from later Tuesday into Wednesday morning.
High temperatures today will reach the upper forties, well above our average of thirty-one degrees, before falling into the low forties on Monday due to modest cooling associated with the first grazing wave. The second on Tuesday will bring more clouds, limiting high temperatures to around forty degrees, along with the late-day and early-Wednesday snow showers. Any accumulations are likely to be meager unless the wave nudges further to the west, which is always a possibility with a source of cold air to our east.
Another day of high temperatures of around forty degrees on a clearing Wednesday will precede a warmup as the rebounding ridge of high pressure moves overhead. Mostly sunny skies with upper-forty-degree temperatures are forecast for Thursday, with even fifty degrees possible on a continued sunny Friday.
The nice weather will last into at least the start of the weekend, with weather forecast models disagreeing on how a storm from the Gulf of Alaska interacts with the ridge. There may be precipitation chances as early as the end of the weekend, or they may hold off until the following workweek.
So enjoy the nice week ahead, and I’ll have more details about the precipitation chances that may herald a desperately needed pattern change in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
