A beautifully crisp and sunny late-spring day is over Steamboat Springs this Thursday, with temperatures approaching 65 degrees this mid-afternoon. After warming to around 80 degrees on Friday and Saturday, a couple of weak cool fronts will drop temperatures to the mid-70s on Sunday and Monday, with light precipitation chances confined to the areas south and east of North-Central Colorado.

The Hudson Bay vortex is still alive and well, a bit unusual so close to the summer solstice, helping direct the last couple of dry cool Pacific Northwest fronts through our area on Tuesday and Wednesday nights. A broad, shallow ridge of high pressure has built over the Gulf of Alaska behind these fronts, moving across the Pacific Northwest this weekend and bringing 80-degree temperatures on Friday and Saturday, above our 75-to-76-degree average.

A wave of cool air rotating around the vortex will combine with some Pacific energy traveling over the ridge to bring three grazing cool fronts toward our area through the weekend. While the first on Friday night is the weakest and will not affect our temperatures, the second on Saturday night will bring some clouds, cooling high temperatures to the mid-70s on Sunday.

The final cool front on Sunday night will also keep Monday’s high temperature around average before the weakening ridge moves over the West through midweek, continuing the dry weather and bringing hot mid-eighty-degree temperatures by midweek.

So enjoy another very pleasant weekend, and I’ll have more details on the coming heat in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Sunday afternoon.