Another round of afternoon and evening storms on tap today, although we have a more westerly flow aloft so storms should move a bit faster and not produce as much rain as yesterday. The next few days it appears that the monsoon flow will be disrupted, partly from an upper level disturbance in the Gulf of Mexico and partly from an upper level trough moving across the northern Rockies into the northern plains. This translates to only isolated storms Thursday through Saturday, as well as warmer temps due to more sunshine and still very warm air aloft.
Latest model guidance suggests that our monsoon flow will return on Sunday and persist into most of next week. Upper level High is forecast to re-build in the mid to lower Mississippi Valley next week which will enhance monsoon flow over CO. The long range models have consistently been trying to re-build the upper High back over the western US, but then retreat from this idea in shorter range forecasts. Long range models now try to re-build the upper High over the 4 Corners region late next week, but at this point I wouldn't bet on that happening until I see it actually happening. So pretty much the same pattern will persists over CO for the next 7-10 days with some slight variation.
I side note here as I have heard many people recently say that the recent weather is worse than they ever remember. Basically, people have a horrible memory when it comes to weather. This has been proven in actual studies, where most people can't remember with accuracy the weather beyond 1 week. let alone years. So, our recent thunderstorms have definitely been intense this year, but no more so than many years previously. The CO record for hail damage occurred in Lakewood in July of 2009, so only 2 years ago. Prior to that it was July 1990. CO receives the highest frequency of large hail in North America, and probably the world. We have wild weather that includes thunderstorms, strong winds, hail and tornadoes every year. Some years are more extreme than others, but I don't believe you can blame any one thing on extreme weather events. they have been happening ever since we had an atmosphere over this planet, and are likely to continue happening. We certainly hear more about extreme events as our global population expands and more people are affected by these events, and when we have a near instantaneous media reporting such events. Our monsoon this year has been vigorous, so more moisture and heat equate to more vigorous thunderstorms.
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"Climatology is what you expect, Weather is what you get".
"It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong".
Too bad future generations aren't here to see all the great things we are spending their $$ on!!
