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Forecast Discussion:
The moisture and upper level support returned. We had, quite suddenly, a storm on Tuesday. I took this picture in front of the Cherrywood Observatory Tuesday afternoon (Figure 1). At the last second, the SPC drew a marginal risk down the I-25 corridor as these storms began to form. (A bit late in my opinion - Figure 2). My rain gauge is showing somewhere over 3/4th of an inch of rain (and some hail melt). The hail at my house ranged from pea to dime sized.
For today, a cool front sags down into northern Colorado (maybe making it to Longmont Figure 3) and a good amount of moisture is still in place for storms (Figure 4) as tropical left-overs from tropical system John et al. flow into the southwestern U.S.
This upper-air flow is still bringing in a lot of western fires and local fire smoke (Figure 5). With moisture, clouds, and smoke, the sky will be murky today.
The upper-level forecast for today shows another upper-level wave approaching as the big western ridge collapses and shrinks south (Figure 6). All that will come together for another round of severe weather today along I-25 (primarily hail and high winds - Figure 7).
The longer range forecast:
We keep getting shots of moisture through the beginning of next week (Figure 8) and the ridge keeps fading, so we have steady cooling to the 70's F by next Tuesday. This will be nice, even if it is smoky. More tomorrow!
