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The Next Storm/Next Snow and Lunar Eclipse Forecast Discussion from the Cherrywood Observatory – January 27, 2018

This content was originally published by the Longmont Observer and is licensed under a Creative Commons license.

Forecast Discussion:

The mini storm on Friday brought a few inches of powder to the ski resorts making people happy and messing up some high country roads making people unhappy.

We sail into the weekend with near normal temperatures- then we climb to a week high temperature on Tuesday in the 60's (Figure 1).  This heat up comes from westerly down slope flow and a big western ridge visible in the Monday upper air map (Figure 2), and the Tuesday upper air map (Figure 3).  Then our next storm moves in, just in time for the total lunar eclipse predawn on Wednesday.

Figure 1: The 10 day graphical forecast for Longmont from weatherunderground.com

Figure 2: 500mb upper air forecast map from the GFS for Monday morning.

Figure 3: 500mb upper air forecast map from the GFS for Tuesday morning.

In the longer range forecast:

If you look back on the previous couple of day cyclone location maps for the morning of the eclipse, you'll notice that the ensemble runs are mainly putting the dominant low up in Canada, but there still is a front and low down in NE Colorado (Figure 4). The rain and snow chances for Wednesday and Thursday are still on the map (Figure 1) with Longmont maybe getting up to an inch of snow by later Thursday (Figure 5).

It looks to be a storm big enough to interfere with the eclipse, but not big enough to interfere with your drive to work.

Figure 4: The ensemble map forecasting cyclone locations (low pressure centers - yellows and greens/blues = more confident) from weathermodels.com and wx.graphics

Figure 5: The total snowfall forecast from the GFS between Friday PM and late Thursday night.

Current Weather

Mostly cloudy

Mostly cloudy

74°F

UV Index
4 Moderate
Pressure
29.8 Rising
Visibility
13 miles
Dewpoint
25 °F
Humidity
16%
Wind
W 6.3 mph
Gust
17.2 mph
Wind Chill
74 °F

Hourly Forecast

Today
3 PM
74°F
Intermittent clouds
Today
4 PM
70°F
Partly sunny
Today
5 PM
65°F
Partly sunny
Today
6 PM
60°F
Partly sunny
Today
7 PM
55°F
Partly sunny
Today
8 PM
52°F
Partly cloudy
Today
9 PM
49°F
Partly cloudy
Today
10 PM
47°F
Partly cloudy
Today
11 PM
44°F
Partly cloudy
Tomorrow
12 AM
43°F
Partly cloudy
Tomorrow
1 AM
42°F
Partly cloudy
Tomorrow
2 AM
41°F
Partly cloudy w/ showers

7 Day Forecast

Partly sunny w/ showers

Friday

76 °F

Partly sunny, becoming breezy this afternoon with a shower


Partly cloudy w/ showers

Friday Night

37 °F

Partly cloudy with a couple of showers late


Partly sunny

Saturday

66 °F

Sun and some clouds


Mostly clear

Saturday Night

40 °F

Clear to partly cloudy


Mostly cloudy

Sunday

76 °F

Mostly cloudy and warmer; breezy in the afternoon


Mostly cloudy

Sunday Night

51 °F

Rather cloudy; windy late


Windy

Monday

60 °F

Winds gusting past 40 mph; cloudy and cooler


Intermittent clouds

Monday Night

43 °F

Breezy in the evening; otherwise, partly cloudy


Intermittent clouds

Tuesday

62 °F

Times of clouds and sun; windy in the afternoon


Intermittent clouds

Tuesday Night

36 °F

Clearing


Sunrise and Sunset

Sunrise
5:57 AM
Sunset
7:58 PM

Based on AccuWeather data