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The Front Range Forecast: Light snow, bitter cold

In Brief:

Very cold air makes a short return and brings a little snow to I-25, a lot in the mountains.

Forecast Discussion:

The big news is again an arctic invasion of very cold air. The front will sweep down the Plains mid-Saturday afternoon (Figure 1). Sunday and Monday will have highs hovering around 10F (maybe only single digits). The very cold air will be shallow and will not be able to climb over the Rockies to the west (Figure 4).

There is some snow with possible periods of freezing rain or drizzle and/or sleet Saturday evening.  Another increase in snow chances occurs Sunday evening.  Some freezing precipitation may fall, off and on, through Monday midday. Most of the state will be seeing snow and winter precipitation on Sunday (Figure 2) with heavy snow in the north and northwest mountains. This shows up well on the weather5280 forecasters map (Figure 3). He has a Trace to 2 inches along I-25 south of Loveland and 2-4 inches total just to the west of the interstate and up in Fort Collins. Snowfall is impressive to the northwest in the mountains!  This same pattern is visible in the GFS snowfall map (Figure 5). I didn't go with the 15:1 snowfall ratios since we should see more of the snow before the very cold air is in place.

 

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Figure 1: the 10 day graphical forecast for Denver from weatherunderground.com
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Figure 2: the NWS surface forecast map for Sunday.
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Figure 3: the storm snowfall total forecast from the forecasters at weather5280.com
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Figure 4: the surface temperature anomaly map for Monday noon from the GFS and weather5280
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Figure 5: the 60 hour snowfall (10:1 ratio) forecast from the GFS and weather5280com

The Longer Range Forecast:

The cold air begins to slosh off to the east on Tuesday but we don't see 40's return until Friday (Figure 1) and no additional notable snowfall over the next 10 days except up in the mountains (Figure 6).

figure6_01282023
Figure 6: the 10 day snowfall (10:1 ratio) forecast from the GFS and weather5280com

 


About the Author: John Ensworth

John Ensworth used to work from Longmont as the PI for the NASA through the IGES (The Institute for Global Environmental Strategies). He now teaches technology, algebra, astronomy, meteorology, film school, and Lego robotics to middle/high school.
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Current Weather

Mostly clear

Mostly clear

44°F

UV Index
0 Low
Pressure
30.31 Steady
Visibility
9 miles
Dewpoint
40 °F
Humidity
86%
Wind
WNW 1.1 mph
Gust
3.9 mph
Wind Chill
44 °F

Hourly Forecast

Today
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7 AM
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2 PM
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3 PM
75°F
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4 PM
76°F
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7 Day Forecast

Partly sunny w/ t-storms

Friday

76 °F

Sun and clouds with widely separated thunderstorms this afternoon


Mostly clear

Friday Night

46 °F

Clear to partly cloudy


Mostly sunny

Saturday

80 °F

Sunny to partly cloudy and warm


Mostly clear

Saturday Night

45 °F

Clear to partly cloudy


Partly sunny

Sunday

83 °F

Very warm with sunshine mixing with some clouds; windy in the afternoon


Partly cloudy

Sunday Night

50 °F

Partly cloudy


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Monday

84 °F

Mostly cloudy and very warm


Partly cloudy

Monday Night

52 °F

Partly cloudy


Mostly sunny

Tuesday

84 °F

Mostly sunny and remaining warm


Mostly clear

Tuesday Night

54 °F

Mainly clear


Sunrise and Sunset

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5:51 AM
Sunset
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Based on AccuWeather data