After a short stretch of tranquil and mild weather in the Colorado Front Range foothills, the weather pattern will become more active over the next several days, through at least Christmas. To get things started, a cold front will sag southward across the northern and central portions of the state early Saturday morning. As it does, a shallow layer of easterly upslope flow will develop east of on the Continental Divide, but probably only up to 6500 to 7000 feet. A limited amount of moisture in the atmosphere combined with this shallow upslope forcing ordinarily would not result in much precipitation for Nederland and the surrounding Foothills communities. And it probably will not. However, a jet streak will be positioned just to our south on Saturday morning, and this may produce enough forcing to result in some bands of snow showers around the Front Range, and a few bursts of moderate snowfall will be possible. Accumulations will be on the light side on the order of 1-2 inches, but heavier accumulations are expected on the west side of the Divide where winds will be more favorable.
Temperatures will be much colder on Saturday with highs along the Peak to Peak highway remaining in the mid 20s F for the balance of the day. The sky should clear during the afternoon hours and that sunshine should stick around through Sunday and Monday. High temperatures should rebound in the mid to upper 30s F during this period.
The weather gets more interesting Christmas Night and Wednesday. The models have been hinting at the possibility of a storm but have had little agreement in the positioning or track of this system. The latest GFS has a deep storm system forming over southern Colorado on Christmas and slowly tracking away from the state on Wednesday. This would result in accumulating snow across much of the Front Range, possibly even significant accumulations in some spots. There is a lot of uncertainty with this storm system, but as details become clearer over the next few days I’ll be posting updates.