Warm weather to turn unsettled starting later Tuesday
Sunday, April 5, 2026
Our welcome stretch of wintry weather is temporarily over in Steamboat Springs, with bluebird skies and temperatures on this Easter Sunday at noon around 50 degrees in town, on the way to 60 degrees, and 30 degrees at the top of the Steamboat Ski Resort on its Closing Day. The workweek will start sunny and a bit warmer, with afternoon and evening precipitation chances emerging by Tuesday and continuing through the workweek.
After 16” of snowfall was reported at mid-mountain from Wednesday through Saturday morning, bringing the season total to 171”, and 17” up top, including a mid-winter powder day on Friday, a ridge of high pressure has built over the West behind the departing storm, and ahead of a splitting trough of low pressure extending south from the Gulf of Alaska.
While the departing storm is bringing wintry weather to the upper Midwest and eventually the Northeast, our area will enjoy sunny skies today with 60-degree high temperatures, above our average of 52 degrees. Clockwise winds rotating around a high-pressure cell over Texas will combine with a modicum of incoming Pacific moisture to our south in a monsoon-like pattern, bringing clouds to our area by later Monday, while still allowing a few degrees of warming.
Though Tuesday should start mostly sunny, a stronger Pacific wave will bring more moisture and a chance of showers by Tuesday afternoon and evening.
Meanwhile, the northern part of the splitting East Pacific trough will cross the British Columbia coast Monday night, while the southern end forms an eddy well off the coast of northern California. The northern wave will cross the northern Rockies on Tuesday, perhaps dragging a cool front through our area on Wednesday, switching our winds from the southwest to the west, and continuing the afternoon and evening shower chances.
The eddy is forecast to drift toward the West Coast later in the workweek, with mild temperatures and afternoon and evening shower chances continuing as winds shift back to the southwest and carry additional Pacific moisture overhead.
The weekend forecast is uncertain and will depend on the track of the eddy and whether it interacts with another round of energy moving across the Gulf of Alaska. So enjoy a beautiful Closing Day, and I’ll have more details about the weekend, as well as a recap of March’s record temperatures, in my next regularly scheduled weather narrative on Thursday afternoon.
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