Let’s Talk Weather
It’s been a pretty long week to me. How’s everyone doing? I hope well. Have you enjoyed the warmth?! I definitely have although my apartment doesn’t have a/c currently…so we’ll see how I’m doing in a couple months. The warmth won’t be going away anytime soon but we could see some cooler nights ahead.
Let’s talk about the severe chances. The image above shows the chances of thunderstorms on Saturday. The light green is where thunder could happen, the dark green is where big hail and damaging winds could happen. Obviously, since Denver, Boulder, Ft. Collins and Colorado Springs are included in that threat, we should talk about the potentials and the knowns.
The Setup
We are expecting a cold front to move through the later morning hours of Friday. There will be some clouds that accompany it as well as some rain showers, mainly around the Wyoming Border. There won’t be a huge, if notivable at all, drop in temperatures but we will go from the mid-80s where we were on Thursday to the low-80s Friday afternoon. With the front comes a lifting mechanism that will aid in creating some severe storms in the afternoon. Our moisture source, which normally comes from the Gulf of Mexico and the Gulf of California, will be coming from the northern Plains and Upper Mississippi River Delta – which means that there is limited moisture to work with.
The above image shows the NAM future radar on Friday at 6 pm. There are a few storms around. Mainly north and East of Denver and that’s where the threat will stay through the day. Denver proper is not included in Friday’s marginal risk but areas like Ft. Collins ara. Storms will be moving mainly east-southeast. Storms on Friday may produce large hail and damaging winds. Large hail is categorized as larger than a quarter (the coin).
A weak shortwave will move across the area on Saturday and will produce areas of drizzle and scattered light showers in the morning. Depending on how quickly the clouds clear with dictate if we get any storms and how strong they will be. Less morning rain and clouds = a stronger storm in the afternoon. More rain and cloud cover = less daytime eating and less energy for the atmosphere to use in a storm that develops later. Temperatures will be in the 60s and low 70s for highs, possibly, on Saturday and that will also inhibit the storm development. Warmer temperatures bring more energy and temperatures are just not going to be that warm. Unless we get more sun than expected..
Although there are some features to watch, the possibility of severe storms on Saturday is more notable for metro areas than it is on Friday. The future radar shows a couple of storms along I-25. The NAM handles moisture pretty well but the closer we get to the actual time of storms, the better the NAM and eventually the HRRR model will decipher which locations storms may flare up. We’ll have to watch these storms, because they can be sneaky this time of the year.
What else?
Temperatures will mainly stay above average for the next 7 days with average temperatures occurring on Saturday and Tuesday. Overnight lows will also be above normal but near average.
Snowpack is doing okay. We’re losing a lot to melting right now as even the mountains are staying above freezing during the overnights. Looking at the line graph which shows the entire season snowpack level as compared to other years and the normal, shows that we pretty much expected what we saw. We should follow a very quick decline in snowpack through May. River levels will stay below flood stage through the weekend.
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Enjoy the weekend and let me know if you see any severe weather!
~ Rain or Shine
I’m Andy Stein
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