This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.
Forecast Discussion:
The moisture is arriving, and northern Colorado got dumped on, but Longmont was skipped. The upper level wave came in a bit early today. By the time daytime heating approached maximum, its lift was off to the east of our part of Colorado (Figure 1). We were in the sinking-air or subsidence side of the trough (sinking air marked). Bud's circulation center is marked with the red L in this figure and is still down on the Mexican border.
The longer range forecast:
The moisture is still coming and we are expected to still pick up 1 to 2 inches of rainfall by the end of Tuesday by most models. The weatherunderground model still gives us about 1.70 inches of rainfall Sunday afternoon to Tuesday night. Don't give up yet! (Sunday was always expected to be the big wet day.)
Figure 3 is the GFS through Monday PM - and Longmont receives about 1.25 inches by then.
Figure 4 takes the same model out to Wednesday PM and we have picked up just a bit more rain, but there are spots in the foothills that the post front (Sunday) up slope flow will dump up to 4 inches (according to this model). Sadly, the southwestern part of the state is only seeing a 1/10th to 1/4th inch of rain in most spots. That helps some, but doesn't do what an inch or two would have done for the fire areas (flash flooding chances will be lower though).
More tomorrow... Happy Fathers Day!
