Summery weather to continue through the weekend despite dry cool front tonight
Thursday, March 26, 2026
As has been the case for most of the last couple of weeks, mostly sunny skies are over Steamboat Springs this Thursday at noon, with temperatures in town already approaching seventy degrees, with mid-forties at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort. A dry cool front tonight will bring slightly cooler temperatures for Friday, though the 2022 record high of 68 degrees may still be challenged. Temperatures rebound into the seventies through the weekend with periods of clouds, followed by a promising cool, wet weather pattern by midweek.
A quick-moving wave of energy to our north will drag a dry cool front through our area tonight, with increasing clouds and breezy conditions ahead of the front. Expect high temperatures tomorrow to fall into the upper sixties, still warm enough to challenge the record.
Meanwhile, a complex weather pattern is developing over the Pacific, featuring low-pressure eddies east and north of Hawaii, a storm in the Gulf of Alaska, and another approaching the Bering Sea. Those weather features will interact through the weekend, bringing a chance for significant high-elevation snow starting around next midweek, with snow possible in town as well.
Ahead of that, a relatively flat ridge of high pressure will build over the West behind tonight’s front, boosting high temperatures back into the seventies for the weekend, which would continue breaking the daily high temperature records.
Interestingly, a high-pressure cell over Texas is forecast to be pushed to the Southeast through the weekend as the eddy north of Hawaii strengthens and pushes the eddy east of Hawaii eastward, crossing southern California around mid-weekend. Winds rotating clockwise around the high-pressure cell and counter-clockwise around the first eddy will carry moisture from the Pacific and Mexico northward, in a surprisingly early monsoon-like pattern, bringing periods of clouds through the weekend.
Of course, the current weather here is surprisingly early, and may or may not be related to a developing strong El Nino pattern, forecast by late summer. The atmosphere may already be subtly reacting to that possible pattern change, and while our wintertime precipitation is not correlated with El Nino or its counterpart, La Nina, the summertime monsoon pattern may be enhanced. That is not a forecast, only a possible outcome.
So enjoy the continued warm weather this weekend, and I’ll have more details on the return of wintry weather in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
