Summary

The mountains along and north of I-70 will see snow showers Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday afternoon with 1-3 inches each afternoon under the heavier showers. The next storm will bring showers and thunderstorm to the eastern plains next Tuesday through Friday, with snow and rain showers likely over the mountains during Memorial Day weekend.

Details

First up, some fun. A meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Alaska wrote the following description of the weather models, comparing each one to a personality encountered while speed dating. It's funny, and pretty accurate:

Now to the weather...

While southern Colorado will see near normal temperatures for the rest of the week and weekend, northern Colorado along and north of I-70 will see afternoon snow showers through Saturday. The heaviest showers should fall on Friday into Saturday. Total accumulations will be light, but each afternoon the heavier showers could produce a few inches.

Sunday will finally warm up to average temperatures and dry out for the entire state. This warm and dry weather should continue into Monday as well.

Then a storm will stall between California and Colorado for the rest of next week and will move over Colorado around Memorial Day Weekend.

The mountains should stay dry through the middle of next week, then the mountains will have a higher chance of rain and high-elevation snow showers late next week through Memorial Day weekend.

For the eastern plains, winds from the south and east will bring high amounts of moisture to the area from I-70 to the north, so expect afternoon showers and storms next Tuesday and Wednesday, with these storms potentially pushing further south toward the central and southern plains next Thursday and Friday.

In sum, much of next week will be dry over the mountains with storms over the eastern plains, then Memorial Day Weekend could be a little cooler and wetter than normal (likely not a wash-out, though).

Also, I just took a peek at the long-range forecasts for the summer, and they show average to below average temperatures with average to above average precipitation. Some of this forecast is based on the likelihood of El Nino to develop. Let's hope this is the case and we have a boring fire season!

JOEL GRATZ