The cold weather remains in place over Northern Colorado to start the week. Clouds on Monday gave way to some light snow during the evening. Accumulations so far have been very light. As of this writing we have received only 0.3 inches of snow.
The upper level shortwave that is producing our latest round of light snow will push into the eastern United States by Wednesday where it will tap into abundant moisture. It will result in a coastal storm (also known as a Nor’ Easter) that will likely bring heavy snow to the Blue Ridge Mountains and interior portions of Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania. East Coast storms are fun to watch because they usually exhibit text book synoptic scale structure. For one thing, East Coast storms often have warm frontal precipitation. Here in the Rockies, we normally do not see warm fronts or warm frontal precipitation. Most of our precipitation is either convective (e.g summer time thunderstorms) or associated with cold fronts or upper level disturbances. We also do not see the mixed bag of precipitation winter storms back East can bring. Ice pellets and freezing rain can wreak havoc on travel in the big cities. However, we do not normally see either precipitation type here in the West.
The next several days appear to be relatively dry and seasonably cool for Nederland and the surrounding Foothills communities.
Tuesday
Even with a good amount of sunshine, highs will only reach into the 20s F with overnight lows in the 10 to 15 F range.
Wednesday
Temperatures will be warmer, reaching into the 25-30 F range. It will also be breezy with wind gusts up to 45 mph possible. Even though it is a La Nina winter, we have not had too many windy days over the past few weeks. Wednesday will feel “more like it”. Hold on to your hat!
Thursday
Milder temperatures will return before another cool down beginning on Friday. Look for highs near 40 F with plenty of sunshine!