The weather recently has been perfect for snowmaking across the Colorado ski areas. Lots of areas are opening up early and opening more and more terrain. We’ve had the coldest temperatures this season in Denver on Friday with a high of 37º and Saturday morning with a low of 11º. We have sustained, even colder weather approaching for the next work week.
We have have several chances for light snowfall in the mountains, foothills and the plains. But when I say light, I mean…light. Like less than 1-2″ in the mountains and Foothills and less than that elsewhere with any given chance.
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A mountain wave cloud is starting to develop as moisture increases today ahead of our next system.
Let’s start with the cold since that’s a sure bet. Multiple reinforcing shots of cold air will impact us this week. Some days, it will be a bit breezy so the windchill will be a factor. I heard a lot of folks say the recent cold felt more like midwest cold and I think that’s because we’ve had some moisture and humidity around. That will be similar this week, too. With multiple pushes of air, we’ll have multiple pulses of moisture which will make the incoming cold potentially feel like “midwest” cold this week.
Intense and strong ridging over Canada is allowing for cold air to spill into the central US. This is the large-scale reason while we’re expected such cold air for so long this week. This kind of warmth and ridging in Alaska is pretty rare for this time of the year.
The coldest day of the week won’t be Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday when highs will be in the 30s…but Friday when highs don’t rise out of the 20s. Overnight lows are looking to drop into the single digits Friday and Saturday morning for the Urban Corridor.
Here’s a look at Atmospheric Heights through the next 10 days. Remember, areas of blue mean cooler, wetter weather while areas of yellow mean the opposite.
More times than not, we’re under the influence of cooler and ‘wetter’ weather. We do start to see a change to warmer and drier weather as we near Thanksgiving.
Here’s what that translates to for our temperatures.
The red line denotes the average high temperature for this time of the year and the blue line denotes the average lows. In every case, highs will be running 10-15º below normal every day this upcoming week. Overnight lows will be running 5-10º+ cooler than normal so this is some serious, lasting cold for this time of the year.
A high of 25º of Friday in Denver is what our overnight lows should be this time of year. Many mountain locations will have sub-zero temps this week.
There won’t be strong winds any particular day but Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday will be breezy at times. Heading into the weekend, Saturday will be cold and Sunday to early next week looks to bring more seasonable temperatures. Our forecast as we head towards Thanksgiving is looking nice with not major storms right now.
Onto the snow forecast. With pulses of cold air, we’ll get pulses of upslope flow but none of this pulses will create deep moisture so we’ll be limited in what could happen.
There are storm areas of low pressure headed our way today (Sunday).
These two areas of low pressure will near Colorado. The one over the Great Basin of Nevada will push in New Mexico – close enough to bring southern Colorado some snow. The one over Montana will near Nebraska at this same time sending a cold front our way tonight. These two areas will interact will each other through Tuesday before ejecting further east.
It looks as if the energy from these two systems will get absorbed into a deepening areas of low pressure over the Great Lakes. As that storm intensifies midweek, it’ll send that big pulse of cold air our way Thursday night through Saturday.
Southern Colorado is up for some possible snow tonight through Monday morning as the system over the Great Basin brings favorable winds for snow in a few areas.
And a look at the NWS chance of snow and the high and low percentiles.
Areas north of I-70 from Glenwood Springs to Genessee could see 1-2″ of snow as the cold front swings through from the north. That could bring a few flakes to Denver as well. Areas from wolf Creek to Alamosa and the Sangre de Cristos may see 2-5″ of snow with this storm. South of hwy 50 has the greatest chance of light snow so heads up around Springfield and Trinidad Monday morning.
Winter weather alerts are posted for some folks in southern Colorado and northern New Mexico
Monday night, Colorado will see another push of cold air and upslope flow. That will bring our next shot at light snow but it’s not looking super impactful currently.
Denver could squeeze our a trace of snow while the Foothills could get an inch or so. For SoCo (southern Colorado), keep in mind this snow Monday to Tuesday includes the snow that you’ll get tonight. Overall, not a huge deal.
The next chance for snow, and potentially the best chance for accumulating snow in Denver comes Thursday evening to Friday morning. That’s when the biggest push of upslope could occur. It’s still not looking impressive though.
Here’s a look at the potential snowfall that could occur through this entire week across Colorado. This includes Sunday and Mondays snow as well as the expected snow by Thursday to Friday.
As you can see, this would favor snow for RMNP and the Summit county area with the Front Range mountains seeing the most action. This is not shaping up to be a great week for additions to snowpack but since it’ll stay cold, we won’t be losing snowpack which is really a good thing.
This will feel like a mid-winter week with cold, clouds and several chances for light snowfall.
Enjoy the weather!
~Andy
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