Nice Friday to be followed by unsettled Saturday and precipitation Sunday
Thursday, October 29, 2026
Mostly sunny skies filtered by high clouds and temperatures near 60 degrees are over Steamboat Springs this Thursday mid-afternoon. After a nice Friday, several approaching storm systems, including the remnants of yet another hurricane- the fourth this season!- will bring cooler, unsettled weather on Halloween, followed by significant precipitation on Sunday. A strong cold front by Monday morning will ensure that some of the precipitation falls as snow.
A ridge of high pressure tilting northwestward from the Southeast is responsible for the warm temperatures above our 52-degree average this week. However, three weather systems will attack the ridge as they approach our area: the remnants of Hurricane Vance south of Baja, a developing storm elongating along the West Coast, and an old eddy in the east-central Pacific left over from the Pacific Northwest trough last weekend.
The hurricane’s remnants are already being drawn overhead by the southwest winds ahead of the developing West Coast storm. However, the moisture is confined to the atmosphere’s highest levels, with no rain chances. The hurricane’s moisture hasn’t affected the high-pressure ridge overhead, so Friday will be very pleasant and mostly sunny, with highs in the low 60s.
Meanwhile, a plume of tropical moisture from southeast of Hawaii, an atmospheric river euphemistically referred to as the Pineapple Express, has developed behind the former hurricane and is being directed at Southern California by both the central Pacific eddy and the developing West Coast storm.
That changes on Halloween as some of the Pineapple Express sneaks toward our area from Southern California. Highs will cool to the low 50s on Saturday, with a chance of showers, though they should be quite light as they interact with the weakening ridge.
Another storm developing south of the Aleutian Islands this weekend will push both the West Coast trough and the Pacific eddy eastward by mid-weekend. A strong and cold storm develops as the offshore eddy is ingested by the cold trough, crossing the Great Basin on Sunday. Energy and moisture ejecting ahead of the storm will start heavier showers by Sunday afternoon, with rain showers turning to snow at the high elevations Sunday night as the cold front approaches.
Snow levels start around 10,500′, but fall to 8,500′ as the cold front blasts through Sunday night or Monday morning. It may be cold enough for some snowflakes in town by Monday night, though most of the precipitation should have fallen. The storm center should be southeast of our area by Monday night, bringing continued showers on Tuesday in the favorable cold, moist, and unstable northwesterly flow behind the storm, or perhaps slightly less-favorable northerly flow.
Early indications are for around 3-6” of snow by Tuesday morning at and above mid-mountain, but the forecast is still changing on every model run, so amounts are uncertain.
Be sure to enjoy the nice pre-Halloween weather, prepare for the colder, wetter post-Halloween weather, and I’ll have more details and updated snowfall guesses in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.
