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Forecast Discussion:
And the unnaturally beautiful weather goes on and on. True confession time, I called for no more 80's this year, and we hit 80F in Longmont on Tuesday. The record was 81F. Today, the record is 79F and we might tie or break it. High pressure dominates with the cold fronts and warm fronts all lingering way up in Canada and the Pacific Northwest (Figure 1).
The frontal systems are always under the jet stream that is equally far north (Figure 2). There is a trough in the Eastern US and off in the Pacific. That Pacific trough (red line) may bring a bit of rainfall relief to the fires in California in a few days.
Speaking of fires, we might see a return of some smoke today as the HRRR model is forecasting a bit of a plume making it across northern Colorado and eastward in Figure 3.
In the longer range forecast:
There will be a weak cold front to cool us down later on Friday then a bigger cool down as the trough (Figure 4) passes over Colorado Saturday. The mountains may see some rain and high elevation snow, but rain chances are now very small for down here in town. Saturday will be cooler than normal, but the ridge begins to build right away to our west and we go back to normal on Sunday, then above normal again next week with strong northwest flow and a big ridge out west (Figure 5). No winter weather is visible in the crystal ball.
I'll begin a Halloween weather watch soon, it is too early to guess right now.
