Front Range Forecast: Fire Danger, Snow and Isolated Severe Thunderstorms Then Clearing

DENVER WEATHER

Hello and happy Monday! It’s going to be a gorgeous, albeit windy day across NE Colorado. Highs will reach into the upper 70s and lower 80s much like what they did on Sunday. The difference today is it will be windier and humidity values will be less so fire danger is elevated and extreme in some cases. For this reason, much of the state is under some kind of fire watch.

These conditions are all ahead of our next system that is going to bring colder and wetter weather to the region for Tuesday, lasting into Wednesday.

Troughs are areas of disturbed weather that are associated with clouds, cooler weather and precipitation. That is what will be overhead on Tuesday.

This disturbance will provide quite a bit of moisture to our area and will bring the Front Range mountains upwards of a foot of snow by Wednesday!

We will wake up to cloudy and damp conditions on Monday in Denver. The Front Range mountains and elevations above 9,000 feet will be seeing all snow while the Eastern Plains start to see thei first thunderstorms of the season Tuesday afternoon. It will pretty much be a damp and cloudy day all day Tuesday.

By Wednesday morning, snow levels drop to around 6,000 feet, possibly a bit lower, so don’t be surprised if some flakes are flying by Wednesday morning in Denver and the surrounding suburbs. We are not expecting accumulations in Denver at this point but if some colder air gets pulled in, a quick and wet accumulation on elevated surfaces is not out of the question.

For severe weather, we are watching our first solid shot at seeing severe storms in NE Colorado on Tuesday. The Storm Prediction Center has portions of Colorado under a marginal risk of seeing severe storms. That’s on the low end but it’s not zero. The main threats with these storms with be quarter sized hail, strong winds and maybe an isolateed tornado.

This is the total amount of precipitation we can expect. This seems a bit overdone but considering the dynamics of this storm, something similar to this could happen. But remember, 2″ of liquid rain is 1/7 of our YEARLY precipitation in Denver so it’s pretty anomalous to get this much moisture in one storm but it’s not unheard of! We did it in March with the blizzard.

For snowfall, remember this is going to be mainly a higher elevation snow.

Those above 9,000 feet west of Denver will likely see a winter storm watch or winter weather advisory by this evening for accumulating snow. Upwards of 12″ of snow may fall east of the divide.

Snow is showing up in Denver on this model but I don’t completely buy it and if any snow did happen, it will melt pretty rapidly on contact especially given the warm temperatures we’ve seen the last few days.

By Thursday and Friday, we begin to see a ridge build back into the area as warmth. and sunshine return. We’ll be looking at widespread 80s and 90s on the Plains as we head into the weekend.

So, enjoy the moisture. Much of Colorado is still under a horrific drought so any moisture is appreciated.

Enjoy the weather! It’s the only weather we have.

~Andy

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