Another warm and dry day today, then we will see a change in our weather beginning Tuesday afternoon. A weak upper trough will move across CO on Tuesday and combine with a plume of late season Monsoon moisture to provide likely precip chances by Tuesday afternoon and evening. An associated cold front will also move through Tuesday evening and keep precip chances going into the late night hours, as well as cool temps significantly by Wednesday morning. Precip chances will continue on Wednesday with snow level down to around 10,000 - 11,000 ft, so some of the higher peaks will get their first significant dusting of the season.
A second upper trough will move down from the Northern Rockies on Thursday and bring a stronger cold front into northern CO by Thursday afternoon. This system will provide some weak up slope flow with showers and light precip Thursday. Snow level with this system will be lower, so snow likely above 10,000 ft, with the possibility of some light snow down to as low as 9000 - 9500 ft by Thursday evening. I doubt any will stick on roads, but some higher areas may see a dusting on grassy surfaces.
Things then dry out and temps warm back to seasonal norms by Friday and into the weekend, so should be another very nice weekend.
Longer range models then put Colorado under a mostly dry but cooler northwest flow aloft next week. Some disagreement between the GFS and ECMWF next week, so will wait for future model runs before a more definitive forecast can be derived.
NOAA report today has the summer of 2012 to be the third warmest on recording the U.S., behind 2011 and 1936. Also saw that over 50% of the U.S. currently is described by the Palmer Drought Index of being in a moderate to severe drought. These levels have not been seen since the drought of the 1930's across the U.S. Tough conditions for ranchers and farmers across much of the U.S. currently. The El Nino outlook will hopefully provide above normal precip to the southern tier states this winter, but may leave much of the northern states under dry conditions.
_________________
"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!!
