Storm chances to linger through Saturday ahead of warming and drying
Friday, August 14, 2026
Mostly cloudy skies and mid-70s near the Steamboat Ski Resort and upper 70s near the Bob Adams Airport are over Steamboat Springs this Friday mid-afternoon, with some thunderstorms nearby. Similar temperatures and chances for storms persist on Saturday, with warming and drying beginning on Sunday and lasting into next week.
This weather narrative, usually published on Thursday afternoons, was delayed until this afternoon due to a storm-caused power outage at the data center hosting this site in Phoenix late Wednesday night. Rainfall associated with a robust monsoonal moisture tap brought between 2 and 3 tenths of an inch of rain to our area that night, with some chances for additional rainfall today and Saturday, including overnight tonight.
A ridge of high pressure over the Southeast will begin migrating westward this weekend as Pacific energy crosses the Northern Rockies and mixes with cool air over the Yukon, forming a trough of low pressure that moves toward the Great Lakes by midweek. We should see one more day of unsettled weather on Saturday, including tonight, with high temperatures in the mid-to-upper seventies, around 5 degrees cooler than our 82-degree average, before the ridge oozes far enough west to start severing the monsoonal moisture tap from the south.
Storm chances decrease on a mostly sunny Sunday as the atmosphere dries, with high temperatures rebounding to around average. Similar weather is forecast to start the workweek, with uncertainty regarding Pacific energy moving through the Gulf of Alaska and its proximity to our area around midweek. This may or may not push the ridge back toward the east, possibly reestablishing the monsoonal moisture tap from the south.
So enjoy the cooler temperatures to start the weekend and what should be a very pleasant Sunday, and I’ll have more details about next week in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
