In Brief:
A cold front (and trough aloft) kills our current heatwave starting Wednesday afternoon bringing two days of cool weather and rain before the warmth returns again.
Forecast Discussion:
Here comes our trough and relief. It is traveling towards Colorado as I type (Figure 1 in the gallery). The surface front is rapidly approaching the Front Range midday Wednesday (Figure 2). The cold front will hit Longmont around 3-5pm (Figure 3) ushering in a very remarkable cool down again; expect about a 20F drop in temperatures. That front has crossed the entire state by Thursday morning (Figure 4). Moisture is flowing back in from the Gulf of Mexico Thursday PM (Figure 5). Over the two day rainy cold spell (with occasional thunderstorms) we might see about 1/2 inch of water around town (Figure 6).
As this system approaches, we still have smoke and haze from Arizona and SW Colorado forest fires pouring into the state (Figure 7) on southwest winds. It isn't until the front sweeps down and north winds return do we see the air clear (Figure 8) later Wednesday night.
The Longer Range Forecast:
A ridge slowly returns (Figure 9) warming us to the 80'sF over the weekend (Figure 3) and 90'sF again next week. Another trough and smaller cool down may return Wednesday (Figure 3). Enjoy this nice break in summer. (We are racking up a remarkable number of 90F+ days already this year. We'll compare this with previous years in future posts.)
