Summary

• Threat of showers lasts through Friday
• Saturday is an in-between day
• Sunday and Monday should be dry

Details

The weather models are struggling to figure out the weather pattern today, Thursday, and Friday. They each predict different timing and strength for the surges of moisture moving into Colorado from the southwest. Therefore, my confidence in the details of this week’s forecast is low.

From what I can piece together, it looks like you’ll need to be prepared for showers in the mountains on each day from Wednesday through Thursday to Friday. There is even the chance for early morning or mid-morning showers on Thursday as a strong piece of energy and moisture moves across Colorado from the southwest.

Saturday is going to be an in between day. We will likely have enough moisture remaining in the atmosphere for some clouds and showers, but, at the same time, a strong storm to our north will begin to push our moisture away.

Right now, most models agree that Sunday is going to be a spectacular day with nearly zero chance of rain. This is my pick as the best day for lengthy mountain adventures during the holiday weekend. The graphic below shows the last three precipitation forecasts from the American GFS model (newest on the left), and they consistently show nearly zero precipitation. When each new version of model agrees with the previous version, confidence in the forecast increases. This is still a four-day forecast, so the details could change, but I doubt that Sunday will slip from being my pick for the best weekend weather.

At this point, I think you can plan on Monday being a nice day as well with a very low (or no) chance of precipitation. I’m uncertain how fast the moisture will return, though, so that’s why I don’t want to give an all clear for Monday just yet.

I’ll write another update on Friday if anything changes with the weekend forecast.

Looking farther ahead, our next chance for a noticeable change in the weather pattern will be late next week (September 9-11th, ish) when a cold front could produce low clouds along the front range. In the mountains, we likely will not see any meaningful snow for the next ~10 days as the coldest air will stay to our north and east.

JOEL GRATZ