After a beautiful and crisp Fall day on Sunday, the next Pacific system will make it's way towards CO on Monday. Upper trough currently over CA will dig into AZ/NM Monday and move into western KS on Tuesday. Models still not in very good agreement on the amount of precip across CO from this system. GFS keeps nearly all precip along the CO/NM border, while the NAM, WRF and Euro are deeper, slower and produce more precip for CO. I currently favor the NAM/WRF solution, so forecast based on these models looks like this:
Clouds will increase from west to east across CO on Monday. Snow will begin early Monday across the southwest mountains, and move east to the Divide by Noon. Majority of precip will remain south of I-70 with this system, and highest amounts south of US 50. With cold airmass already in place, snow level will stay below Plains level, so all precip as snow with this system. Light snow looks to begin along the foothills and adjacent Plains Monday afternoon, sometime around 3 pm. Light snow should be in place for the Monday evening commute, but any accumulation would be light. Snow looks to continue Monday night with heaviest amounts between 9 pm Monday and 3 am Tuesday. Again, heaviest amounts will be in the southern areas, so southern JeffCo and from the Palmer Divide south will receive highest amounts. Snow totals look to be in the 2-5 inch range for foothill areas south of I-70. Along the Urban Corridor, probably 1-3 inches south of I-70. Southeast CO and far eastern Plains will likely see heaviest snow where a Winter Storm Watch is currently in effect, and 4-8 inches may fall. For our foothills, snow should persist into early Tuesday morning, ending by Noon. Tuesday morning commute could be slow and slick.
This system will also produce a significant Fall severe weather outbreak late on Monday for southern KS, OK and TX where severe thunderstorms and tornadoes will become likely Monday evening into Tuesday morning. Severe weather will move slowly east on Tuesday into eastern TX, AR and MO.
For CO, the remainder of this week should see dry conditions with temps back to near seasonal norms. Next chance for snow looks to be this coming weekend, as long wave upper trough will remain over the western US keeping the storm track open for CO.
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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!!
