Summary:

Sunny Thursday, Friday, and Saturday morning. A few showers Saturday evening, then many rain and snow showers Sunday into Monday. A colder and stronger storm is possible for Thursday 10/2 :-)

Details:

The warmest and sunniest weather for the next 8 days will likely be today, Friday, and the first half of Saturday. Get out to enjoy a hike, run, climb, bike, leaf viewing, a gelato, or whatever else you love to enjoy outside. The San Juan mountains might see an afternoon shower on Thursday or Friday, but any shower should be pretty weak.

On Saturday late afternoon, a few more showers will pop up, especially closer to Utah, and the winds will increase.

Then between Saturday night and midday Sunday we'll likely see a cold front move through with lots of rain showers (and snow above ~11,000-12,000ft). The exact timing of the front is still up for grabs, but the summary is that Saturday will be a much nicer day than Sunday.

Monday will feel like fall with cool temperatures, low to mid clouds over the northern half of Colorado, and additional rain showers (snow above ~10,000ft) during the day Monday and Monday evening.

Tuesday, Tuesday night, and the first half of Wednesday should be dry (or mostly dry with just a few showers), and then the fun begins.

Wednesday night through Friday morning has the potential for our first significant snow for most Colorado mountains. The details are still murky this far out, but I'm rather confident that at least the central and northern mountains will see some snow below 10,000ft, and perhaps much lower. The European model wants to develop a strong storm (which is good since this model is the most accurate model), but it hasn't locked onto a consistent forecast yet, so I'll wait until it stops flip-flopping before talking about any details.

If a stronger storm does come to fruition, Thursday and Friday's temperatures could be 15-20 degrees below normal. Lovely:-)

^{The weather for next Thursday and Friday could be quite chilly. Stay tuned. Source: Weatherbell.com} 

It feels great to be talking about snow again, yes?! 

JOEL GRATZ