After a very wet weekend for some with flooding rains, the heat and sun are back in full force. This past weekends rains stirred up a lot of drama on the socials from the images of flooding along I-70 and for good reason.
It was a damn mess for a little bit. We’ve since dried out and really warmed up this week. That’s a trend that will continue into the weekend.
Forecast Highlights:
- Hot and dry weather continues through the weekend
- Mountain rain chances slowly rise
- Another round of monsoon moisture looks probably for next week
First off, a quick update for this summer regarding temperatures and precipitation.
So far, much of Colorado has been 1-2º warmer than normal. Some areas like around Denver and FoCo have been 2-3º warmer than normal since June 1.
Precipitation has been most valuable in SW Colorado near the SLV and the San Juan mountains. The Front Range has been noticeably drier than normal this season. It could be worse, the southern Plains are having a horrendous summer of heat and drought.
Forecast Discussion:
A ridge of high pressure is currently overhead keeping us abnormally hot and limiting our rain chances. This ridge will stay put through at least Saturday with a slight weakening trend through the weekend. During this time, the ridge will also be pushing east a bit.
For now, that means a continuation of what we’ve had this week. Sunny skies and limited cloud cover.
Now through this weekend, rain chances will be confined to those west of the Continental Divide and across the Great Basin.
Once we start to see the shift of the high pressure, that’s when the weather will begin to shift. Monsoon moisture will stay trapped under the ridge and provide daily chances for afternoon storms – some days, rain chances will be higher than others but overall, it’s looking like a potentially stormy week.
With precipitable water (amount of water in a column of the atmosphere) rising next week, this means that we could have some true soakers around so flooding could be an issue to watch. Burn scar will have to be monitored statewide but also, urban flooding could again become a concern.
Above is not a solidified forecast but a mere showing of wetter times ahead.
The CPC is also following this trend showing a high chance of above normal precip across our area from the 15-19 of August.
This trend of wetter weather continues from August 17-23 as the CPC is thinking.
From what it’s looking like, this could mean cooler than normal temperatures as well for our area!
Overall, this summer has been topsy turvy. We’ve had plenty of heat (46 90º+ days in Denver so far) with sub-par precip for the Front Range. Meanwhile, those in SoCo have benefitted from lots of monsoon rains which has eradicated drought concerns briefly.
The Monsoon season usually lasts through August but starts turning off in early September so this is a late showing of a good surge of moisture. It could be the last but hopefully we get one or two more pushes before we start looking at Fall and Winter trends!
Here’s a look at temperatures across the region over the next week.
Plenty more 90º days ahead for Denver which will secure us a higher up spot regarding the number of 90º days we’ve had this summer.
Enjoy the weather!
~Andy
P.s. – if anyone does any basic website work, I’d love to chat will you about updating my website!
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