In Brief:
Cool temperatures settle in this week with a number of rain/snow chances!
The Forecast Discussion:
We will have what is called northwest flow set up for much of the next week. The upper air flow comes from the Pacific northwest and flows to the southeast over the state. This allows ripples in the flow to create quick bursts of rain and snow over Colorado and many other Great Plains states. Our first short hit comes Friday night into Saturday (Figure 1). We might see a slushy inch or so on grassy surfaces by Saturday morning.
We warm briefly until another front late Monday arrives bringing rain and thunderstorm chances.
The Longer Range Forecast:
The peak of the storm comes Tuesday and Wednesday morning (Figure 1) with a cutoff low travelling overhead (Figure 2). The GFS gives us a short but intense burst of snow! (Figure 3). Beyond that, there is another chance of rain/snow Thursday/Friday and again on Sunday. Lots of interesting weather is coming!
The GFS gives the I-25 folks a bit of snow over the next 48 hours (Figure 4) but some good snows for the mountains to the west. If true, the next 10 days sees an inch of snow east of I-25 but a rapid increase to a foot of snow just west of I-25 (Figure 5). We'll see what happens!
