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Forecast Discussion:
The ridge is sitting overhead and a lot of smoke has returned to the Front Range, but there is a bit of a change coming for the weekend. The ridge is being deformed to the east a bit as a trough nudges in from the west (Figure 1). There won't be much of a cool down, but a bit of monsoonal moisture and cleaner air is on the way (green arrows).
Figure 2 shows the dry air over northern Colorado on Friday (reds/oranges) but the return flow of moisture from the southwest (green arrows) isn't far away. The surface map for Saturday afternoon (Figure 3) has some showers and storms from Arizona up into the western and southern mountains of Colorado (and on the SE Plains).
With the flow ahead of the trough, cleaner air is approaching (Figure 4). Downwind of the Rockies, it will take longer to clear since the mountains disrupt the flow. Figure 5, for tonight, has us breathing easier.
Just to check on the status of the Colorado drought quickly, Figure 6 still paints Longmont in the 'no drought' zone. There has been a bit of relief in the southwestern half of the state, but severe drought conditions still persist out there.
The longer range forecast:
The monsoon moisture (meager for Longmont) will linger through the weekend (Figure 7) with a very small chance of afternoon storms making it off the mountains. The week looks really dry with a chance of a change next weekend (but that is far off into the future). More tomorrow!
