This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Forecast Discussion:
The cold front came through pre-dawn with blustery winds that faded out as Saturday went on. We did warm up to 60F, which is about 5 degrees below normal. Today (Sunday) we return to 71F which is 6 degrees above normal. The front is way down into New Mexico and is off making severe weather in Oklahoma and North Texas (Figure 1). Behind the front, our temporary cold can be seen as the turquoise colors over our region. The upper air pattern for Saturday PM (Figure 2) shows the trough (red line) past us already.
In the longer range:
The western ridge, already present Saturday night in Figure 2, builds across the west and warms us up, but gives us northwest flow aloft. By Wednesday morning, we are well under the tilted ridge, but change is also on the map (Figure 3). The shortwave trough over western Canada will come down and help back build our eastern US trough towards us (Figure 4) by Friday AM. The surface map on Friday AM shows a small blob of moisture over the Front Range (Figure 5). With the troughs and ridges on Figure 4 drawn on Figure 5, note that most of the precipitation is orientated with the troughs and on the right side of those troughs. A neat bit of meteorology illustrated there!
A cool down, and somewhat better chance of moisture, is in the forecast for Thursday afternoon on into the weekend...
