Hot days and warm nights to continue, with rain chances through midweek
Sunday, July 26, 2026
Temperatures are at 95 degrees at the Bob Adams Airport in Steamboat Springs this Sunday mid-afternoon and 90 degrees near the base of the mountain, with mostly sunny skies but storms advancing from the southwest. High temperatures between 5 and 10 degrees above the 84-degree average will persist for the upcoming week, with monsoonal moisture bringing chances for late-day storms that peak on Wednesday. Shower chances diminish or end after midweek, lasting into next weekend.
A ridge of high pressure extends from the West Coast to the Appalachians, bringing hot temperatures to a large part of the U.S. This past week started hot, with last Monday’s 95-degree record, discussed in my last weather narrative on Thursday, eclipsed by another 98-degree record on Tuesday, breaking the previous 1931 record of 94 degrees, and marking another 4th-warmest day recorded in Steamboat Springs since 1893.
More uncomfortable have been the warm overnight low temperatures, with last Thursday’s low of 58 degrees breaking the 2010 record of 57 degrees, compared to our average of 47 degrees. So far in July, we have seen the warmest low temperatures recorded over both 1- and 2-week periods! In fact, the warmest 52.8-degree average low temperature for the 2 weeks from July 12th through July 25th, and the next-warmest 52.1 degrees from July 11th through July 24th, broke the 2003 51.9-degree record from July 16th through July 29th.
It was even warmer during the 1-week periods, with July 2026 currently holding the top four spots of 55.6 degrees from July 19th through July 25th, 55.4 degrees from July 18th through July 24th, 55.1 degrees from July 17th through July 23rd, and 54.1 degrees from July 16th through July 22nd. These all broke the previous 1998 record of 53.6 degrees from July 23rd through July 29th.
While we continue to see near-90-degree high temperatures this week, afternoon and evening thunderstorms from monsoonal moisture rotating northward across our area should bring late-day cooldowns, with any storms capable of producing heavy rain, strong winds, and small hail, peaking on Wednesday.
We are grazed by Pacific energy moving across the Northern Rockies on Wednesday, perhaps leading to the strongest storms of the week and high temperatures cooling into the upper-80s. The southwesterly winds following midweek behind the grazing energy will interrupt the monsoonal moisture tap from the south and bring drier air overhead starting on Thursday. There is disagreement among the weather forecast models as to whether this reduces or eliminates the storm threat as we head into next weekend, though they agree that the low-90-degree high temperatures return.
As I am putting the finishing touches on this blog at 5 pm, a strong thunderstorm is passing overhead, dropping a tenth of an inch of rain so far, and lowering temperatures by 22 degrees from 88 degrees at 4 pm to 66 degrees at 4:45 pm, including a 5-degree fall in just the 5 minutes between 4:25 pm and 4:30 pm.
So hope for additional moisture from the late-day thunderstorms through midweek, and I’ll have more details on how dry the weekend will be in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
