Denver is in the midst of a warming and drying trend, so if you’re looking for a good time to wash your cars, go ahead and do it now. We don’t have wet weather expected again until Tuesday evening into Wednesday of next week.
It’s been a cool and wet March in Denver. Temperatures are running 3.7 degrees below average for the month and we have received 1 inch of moisture, which is 0.38 of an inch above normal for the month. What this boils down to is it has been cool and wet this March. Speaking of wetness, let’s check in on our drought.
The image above with the mint-colored green is a look at where drought has improved recently, which is most of the Interstate 25 corridor and points to the east. With a one-class drought improvement, that brings Denver out of official drought status and into the category of “abnormally dry.” That’s a similar story for Fort Collins, Colorado Springs, Castle Rock and the southwest Foothills.
Overall, we are doing much better than where we were in December, but as you can see from the actual drought map above, we still have a long way to go to eradicate all of the drought across the state. We won’t get any help this weekend, but as we look into next week, a storm that could bring moisture to the entire state looks possible.
Before we jump into that, let’s talk about this weekend’s warmth.
We have a strong ridge of high pressure (denoted mostly by the orange colors above) that will traverse from the West Coast to the Central Plains between now and early next week. Ridges are synonymous with warm and dry air, so that is exactly what is in the forecast. In fact, it could be so warm that we may approach some records.
Temperatures Friday will warm to above average, but we won’t feel some real heat until Saturday and that warmth will continue through Monday. Enjoy the warmth, because it’s been a while since we felt 80-degree heat. We last felt 80 degrees in Denver back on Nov. 6.
Next week’s storm(s)
So next week, there are some messy storms possible. Snow for the mountains, rain for the lower elevations with a changeover to all snow expected, but with such warm temperatures preceding this event, it’ll be tough to talk accumulations.
Instead, let’s talk about what the models are showing now.
The two big models are in decent agreement that a storm will be in the vicinity of Colorado bringing cooler and wetter weather to the area. As of right now, we can definitely expect wet weather Tuesday evening to Wednesday but whether or not we see rain or snow around Denver has yet to be determined.
The mountains will definitely see some snow during this period and it looks to be an even share of snow across all mountains at this point. Three to 8 inches of accumulation looks probable for most mountains between Tuesday-Thursday or next week. One to 3 inches is possible for the I-25 corridor, but, again, temperatures will play a big role if we see rain or snow.
Another storm looks to follow the midweek storm pretty quickly with another burst of weather possible between Friday and Sunday of next week. This one could be a little bit more potent and since we will have cooled off from the midweek storm, we could be talking more snow than rain with the second system.
The main models are showing signals of a storm rolling through for the first weekend of April. The EURO and the GFS are differing in the strength of the storm, but the location isn’t too far off, so, at this point, it’s looking like a good setup for more unsettled weather.
Since this storm is even further out, it’s hard to put totals up, but keep this potential storm in the back of your head if you have any weekend plans from March 31 to April 3.
For now, enjoy the dry and warm weather.
