Hot and dry weather to return for the workweek
Sunday, August 17, 2025
Comfortable temperatures around eighty degrees with partly cloudy skies are over Steamboat Springs this Sunday mid-afternoon. High temperatures are forecast to increase this workweek, approaching ninety degrees starting Tuesday, with rain chances near zero until the weekend when moisture is forecast to return.
A ridge of high pressure over the Mississippi Valley is moving westward and has bent the monsoonal plume of moisture that brought much-needed precipitation to our area eastward. Anybody around to witness the cloudburst on Friday evening that went right over the Steamboat Ski Resort? 
Shown is a time-lapse of the storm cell acquired from the cams at Four Points and Thunderhead Lodge, infrared satellite, and radar between 5:40 pm and 7:00 pm.
Immediately apparent is the striking rain shaft that traveled up the South Valley before reaching the Steamboat Ski Resort around 6:40 pm.
The image in the lower-left is the infrared satellite, which measures cloud-top temperatures; the higher the cloud, the colder the temperature, and the stronger the thunderstorm. I have added a small red arrow tracking the cell from when it was barely noticeable. The rapid increase in storm strength is also apparent in the radar images, which shows the cell moving right over town.
The darkening sky and rumbling thunder were clues that the storm was rapidly approaching and strengthening, and the instantaneous appearance of a sharp clap of thunder and lightning bolt at 6:40 pm marked the passage of the storm directly overhead. Over a third of an inch of rain was recorded at the base of the Thunderhead lift, and I suspect more fell just to the south.
But there is no hope for a repeat this workweek as a ridge of high pressure builds over the Rockies. High temperatures in town are forecast to be in the mid-eighties on Monday and approach ninety degrees for Tuesday through Thursday, above our average of eighty-one degrees.
While there was weekend progress in containing the Lee Fire, now over 137,000 acres and 42% contained, and the Crosho fire at 2004 acres and 5% contained, the increasingly hot temperatures will fortunately be accompanied by far less wind than last week. The NOAA Smoke model forecast indicates quieter fire activity and very little smoke through Monday night.
A storm in the Gulf of Alaska is forecast to rotate eastward through the workweek, eventually bringing some energy across the northern Rockies by the weekend. We may see some moisture associated with the southern part of the storm, and it is not yet clear how much the ridge of high pressure overhead may be deflected back to the east, possibly opening the door to another monsoonal surge of moisture.
Enjoy another summery week, as they will surely grow less frequent as fall approaches, and I’ll have more details about the possible weekend moisture in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
