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In Brief:
After rain dumped on a few spots in Colorado Thursday PM, the upper level high reforms over the southwestern U.S. Moisture will still flow into the ridge, but at a lesser rate. Low level winds will return to a northwesterly direction drying things out a bit. We hover around the upper 80'sF and lower 90'sF until a (hinted) return of more moisture next week.
10am Update:
The severe weather predictions yesterday may have been a bit over-done - persistent clouds limited heating needed to push the plentiful moisture up into stronger storms. Still, there were some high wind and hail reports in NE Colorado (Figure 1 update). There is still some deeper moisture (almost 1 inch of precipitatable water) - but the drier air is beginning to flow in from the northwest (orange arrow in Figure 2 update).
End 10am Update.
Forecast Discussion:
There was 'some' excitement (thunderstorm-wise) across the state on Thursday (I'll update with interesting storm reports Friday). As the upper level trough of Thursday passes, the high center will reform over the desert Southwest (Figure 2). Moisture will still be fairly abundant for the next few days (Figure 1). For Friday, the severe storm chances reside out in Kansas and Oklahoma, far to our east (Figure 3).
The Longer Range Forecast:
The high will jog towards our state Saturday tamping down the storms some more and warming us to the lower 90'sF - then moisture returns, temperatures drop a few degrees, and afternoon storms return (Figure 4).
