Unsettled work week follows a nice weekend

Thursday, April 26, 2018

A ridge of high pressure currently over the western states will be pushed eastward by a large Pacific storm currently spinning off the West Coast. The beautiful springtime weather we are currently experiencing in Steamboat Springs will continue through the first part of Saturday as the ridge passes over our area early in the weekend and warms temperatures to above normal.

Meanwhile, the Pacific storm will make landfall in Oregon early Saturday morning. Southwest flow and some Pacific energy moving through the storm looks to combine with some Gulf of Mexico moisture that was transported northward from the recently departed storm, bringing the possibility of warm showers to our area by Saturday afternoon and evening, more numerous and stronger to our south.

Dry air in continued southwest flow will end any showers by early Sunday morning and make for a gorgeous spring day.

However, additional waves of Pacific energy will interact with the West Coast storm in a complicated and difficult to predict manner through most of the following work week.

The first of these will elongate the Great Basin storm southward early Monday before moving over Colorado later in the day and sparking afternoon and early evening showers. The second wave of Pacific energy will then act to split the Great Basin storm late Monday, with part of the storm traveling eastward over our area on Tuesday and part of it traveling southward through the Great Basin.

So the late Monday showers are forecast to continue through Monday night and Tuesday as part of the Great Basin storm moves across Colorado. Temperatures will also cool, lowering snow levels, as cool and moist northwest flow follows the storm later Tuesday, leaving snow accumulations above 9000 feet or so.

With so many moving pieces, I expect the forecast to change over the coming week, but right now a break in the precipitation is advertised for the first half of Wednesday before a separate surge of cool air from western Canada brings a cold front through northern Colorado later in the day, along with another round of showers.

Meanwhile, the southern piece of the Great Basin storm is eventually forecast to moves across Arizona and New Mexico around midweek, with precipitation from that staying to our south later Wednesday and Thursday. Though this storm could end up moving slower than forecast, it likely won’t affect our weather do to its southern trajectory, and nicer weather is currently forecast for northern Colorado for the end of the work week and the following weekend.