After a couple of hot and dry days here in Ned, cooler and more importantly wetter weather is on its way for to the Colorado Front Range. Highs the past three days topped out in the 81 to 82 F range. If you look at the number of times we reach at or above 80 F each year, you can see that it varies considerably with some summers being much warmer than others:
This goes down considerably when you use 85 F as the threshold:
We have only reached above 90 F three times in the past 10 years and that was in 2012, which as you can see was a very warm summer.
As for Thursday and Friday, the 1-3 day map of the Quantitative Precipitation Forecast (QPF) from the Weather Prediction Center (WPC) says it all:
It shows a bulls eye of 0.75 inch to 1.50 inch total rainfall amounts over the northern Front Range mountains, including Ned and the surrounding Foothills communities. If this forecast is on track, it would bring a welcome rain event to our area, one which we do not typically see in the dry month of June. This lines up fairly well with the GFS and NAM models although both keep the heaviest precipitation just south of Nederland. The Weather Underground forecast shows us cool and moist as well:
and this gives us about 0.76 inches of rain.
Notice, too, that the temperatures will be very cool for this time of year with highs in the 50s and lows in the low 40s F.
A cold front associated with a deep and cold low tracking to our north from the Pacific Northwest will pass through later tonight. Winds will swing around from the northeast when it does and temperatures should fall back into the mid 40s F by morning. Winds will become easterly during the day on Thursday, and as moisture becomes more abundant, showers and thunderstorms will develop during the afternoon and evening hours. Storms will be relatively fast moving Thursday and Friday, and even though precipitable water values will be high, the chance of flooding should be minimal.
Once this system passes through, things will dry out just in time for the weekend, with temps in the very comfortable 70 – 75F range. It also appears that there will be an abundance of Colorado sunshine!