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Forecast Discussion:
The westerlies made progress pushing the frontal air off to the east on Friday. Figure 1 shows the green and light blue (cooler air) now sitting over eastern Colorado and Kansas. A darker blue tongue of warmer air has formed up the I-25 corridor on the right side of the stationary front drawn in. We have two jet stream flows combining overhead bringing in a steady source of (limited at first) moisture and wind energy to the western side of the Rockies (Figure 2). Down slope winds will pick up on Saturday to warm us up and blow things around.
That westerly flow will mean snow for the western slopes and higher elevations. Figure 3 for Sunday morning shows a good amount of mountain snow west of us and a front that has pushed down into NE Colorado Saturday night. Winds will die down again tonight and low clouds and drizzle will return again.
In the longer range forecast:
The Saturday PM and Sunday front won't mean much rain for us, but another system coming in Tuesday may still give Longmont some snow. Figure 4 shows the total accumulation of snow up through Monday night. There are 13 and 15 inch snow amounts in the higher mountains, but nothing here in town. In Figure 5 we add on the time periods through Wednesday morning. It looks like we might see 2-3 inches by this model run. More later!
