In Brief:
Monsoon moisture is back giving us seasonably warm weather into the weekend with daily afternoon thunderstorm chances.
Forecast Discussion:
There are ongoing fires (and new ones) in the west. Flow around the high pressure system to our southeast is bringing some of that smoke in creating hazy conditions and air quality alerts (Figure 1 in the gallery above). We are in a different kind of broken record pattern - one that is nicer and cooler than last week (what's a record Dad?). We are hovering around 90F into the weekend with afternoon storm chances (green circles Figure 2). Our storm chances (even if not great each day) are due to the moisture flowing up into the state west of the high pressure center in Texas (green arrows Figure 3). The National Weather Service is calling this "monsoon moisture" - which is a seasonal air flow pattern that sets up in the summer in the Southwest U.S. The term is borrowed from the much more serious monsoon seen in India.
The Longer Range Forecast:
The pattern does not changed much at all even by Thursday (Figure 4). Sadly, our five day precipitation total is still light in northern Colorado (Figure 5). Lucky folks will see an inch or two of water in places (Figure 5). The pattern is expected to change by next Wednesday (Figure 2) as the large east-west ridge across the southern U.S. forms another center around Las Vegas (Figure 6). This will alter the air flow into the state, decrease our moisture availability, and bring back the heat for a while.
