wxgeek's weather-Drier pattern ahead-Update Aug 9

Update Tue Aug 9

One more hot day today and then temps will cool to near or slightly below seasonal norms the remainder of the week. A cold front will skirt the northeast corner of CO tonight and will push cooler and more moist air into eastern CO overnight, which could produce some low clouds and fog up against the foothills. High pressure at the surface will build into the northern plains and keep an easterly wind for the foothills and plains Wednesday into Thursday. Slight chance for storms this afternoon and evening with best chances in the northeast corner of CO. Only very slight chances for storms on Wednesday, with isolated storms on Thursday. Friday looks mostly dry and then slightly better chances for storms over the weekend, although still of the isolated variety.

Long range models indicate a similar pattern next week, with temps near seasonal norms, and only isolated afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Monsoon moisture looks to remain south of us through next week under the influence of the west coast upper trough and stronger westerly winds aloft. Models suggest that a more favorable monsoon flow will return the following week, or week of Aug 22. This would be pretty typical to get a final monsoon blast towards the end of August, as the mosoon should end in early September.

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Nice to be back in Colorado after spending the past 2 weeks in the midwest. 1 week working the EAA Air Venture event in Oshkosh for the 18th time, and some R&R the following week. Loving the dry air and cool nights once again. After a very wet start to August, it appears we will see a drier pattern the next week or so.

The upper high over TX will weaken and move west into southern AZ/NM, and the upper trough along the west coast will begin to influence our weather pattern more with a stronger westerly flow aloft. This combination will suppress the monsoon moisture from moving north out of Mexico. We will still see some isolated afternoon and evening thunderstorms today and Saturday, but Sunday and Monday look mostly sunny with only a very slight chance for precipitation. Temps will also warm due to more sunshine in the afternoons. The remainder of next week also looks mostly sunny with only slight chances for afternoon and evening storms through next Friday.

We ended July with 3.74 inches of rain on Conifer Mountain, which is the highest total for July since I began keeping records in 2006. August of 2007 is still the wettest month on record I have, with 4.74 inches of rain. The good news is that our wet monsoon has greatly decreased fire danger in most areas, and brought us back to near normal precipitation for the year.
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"Climatology is what you expect, Weather is what you get".

"It is better to be roughly right than precisely wrong".

Bump for Aug 9 update