Skies are clearing from the west this Sunday at noon in Steamboat Springs, with temperatures around forty degrees in town, warming to around fifty degrees, and mid-twenties at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort. More sun, afternoon breezes, and warmer temperatures to start the work week precedes cooler temperatures on Wednesday due to a dry grazing cool front. Temperatures rebound starting Thursday, lasting into the weekend, with afternoon breezes and mostly cloudy skies.

After ten inches of snow were reported at mid-mountain between Wednesday night and Friday afternoon, eight inches up top, and seven inches in town, Saturday brought a stunning, but relatively rare this season, mid-winter day. Snowfall on Friday was intense at times during the afternoon, highlighted by three-inch-per-hour snowfall rates between 2 pm and 2:20 pm, recorded at both mid-mountain and the summit, and again between 4 pm and 4:20 pm, but only at mid-mountain and in town.

Clouds this morning should give way to a beautiful, mostly sunny afternoon with high temperatures rising to around fifty degrees, above our 42-degree average.

The eddy from the splitting storm that just passed through our area is now vacationing off the coast of Baja, and will be coaxed across the Mexican border by energy ejecting from a storm in the Gulf of Alaska. The jet stream to our north will strengthen, bringing afternoon breezes on Monday and Tuesday, but allowing high temperatures to rise into the mid-fifties, perhaps threatening the 57-degree record on Monday set in 1989.

By Tuesday night, the jet stream will move southward, linking up with the eddy remnant and allowing cold air to spill southward across the Midwest on Wednesday, likely causing severe weather in the Ohio River Valley. While we will avoid almost all of the cold air, a grazing cool front will knock high temperatures back to around average on Wednesday, with a shower or two possible north of our area Tuesday night.

Cold air moving southward across Alaska will keep the Gulf of Alaska storm active through the weekend. An eddy of low pressure north of Hawaii is forecast to inject some moisture into the storm starting around midweek, forming an atmospheric river, also known in this case as the Pineapple Express, before becoming absorbed by the storm near the end of the weekend.

Unfortunately, a ridge of high pressure is forecast to build ahead of the eddy and move eastward toward the southern West Coast by the weekend, keeping the jet stream across the Northern Rockies. It appears we will see some moisture in this pattern with northwesterly winds, though the warm air and absence of storm energy mean only cloudiness from Thursday into the weekend.

The jet stream is forecast to eventually be forced southward on the front side of the building ridge, possibly ingesting some cold Canadian air and moving far enough south across the central Rockies to bring precipitation back to our area by the end of the weekend or early in the following workweek. But that is a week away, so enjoy the beautiful start to the workweek, and I’ll have more details about the weekend in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.