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Forecast Discussion:
Snow continues on the western slopes of Colorado as moisture streams across the West, but Longmont remains dry and a bit above average in temperature (Figure 1). For Monday evening (Figure 2) the western slopes precipitation picks up more as California and other western states get soaked.
For Christmas morning, northwest Colorado keeps getting new snow showers, but nothing is likely to leak over the Rockies and make it to I-25 communities (Figure 3).
Figure 4 shows the actual snow cover as of Sunday PM (Christmas Eve Eve). Over the next 48 hours, through Christmas night (Figure5), Longmont is unlikely to see anything more than a flurry Christmas morning if we are very very lucky (Figure 8).
The longer range forecast:
AFTER Christmas, things really get hopping in a winter-like way. A powerful trough moves in with another on its heels (Figure 6). The GFS paints a large shield of precipitation from Canada to Mexico with lots of activity over our state (but a bit of a hole over Longmont - Figure 7).
The overall picture (Figure 8) shows two periods of storminess after Christmas over the next 10 days. Temperatures settle down into the 30'sF then 20'sF for highs at the end of the week and recover just a bit next weekend. Overall, it is going to be a lot colder and we will have many more chances of snow - coatings to measurable amounts - maybe.
