August 2021 across the Front Range was defined by its poor air quality and tenacious smoky skies which were mostly caused by out-of-state wildfires. Other weather highlights during the month included a rotating thunderstorm which prompted tornado sirens, lots of red smoky sunsets, a sprinkle of summertime snow in the Mountains, and the landfall of Category 4 Hurricane Ida sixteen years to the day after Hurricane Katrina. Here’s a quick and colorful recap of our weather during August and how it relates to climatology.
Category: Fire Weather (Page 20 of 29)
The focus for this week’s weather discussion lies in the tropics. Category 4 Hurricane Ida made landfall into Louisiana on Sunday, but more importantly for Colorado, the remnants of once Hurricane Nora in the Pacific will reach our neck of the woods later this week. What will this surge of tropical moisture bring to the Front Range and when do we expect the thick smoke to begin to clear out again? Read on to find out.
It has been fairly dry most of the summer with the monsoon moisture plume largely staying to our west. Over the last eight weeks, Denver has officially reported less than a half inch of rainfall which is far below normal. Not surprisingly, drought has now returned to portions of northeast Colorado. The week ahead will offer little reprieve from this dry pattern as temperatures remain above normal in the 90’s with just one day of decent rain chances to look forward to. Wildfire smoke will be fairly bearable, however, as a northward storm track and resulting atmospheric flow will keep the worst of it away from the Front Range.
We sure sound like a broken record, but the week will begin hot and smoky across the Front Range. As we head into midweek and especially beyond, we’re expecting a big drop temperatures, as well as increasing chances for wet weather. Thick, elevated smoke will likely linger through the week as massive upstream fires continue to rage across the Pacific Northwest and parts of Canada.
What a wild weekend in weather it was across the Front Range! A daunting wall of wildfire smoke took over the entire state of Colorado on Saturday and has blanketed our area ever since. When will the smoke clear out and our air quality improve, how hot will it get this week, and what the heck happened to the monsoon? Read on to find out.
Sure…it has been fairly smoky already this week across our area, but it’s about to get a whole lot worse! An extremely smoke-laden airmass is poised to invade the entire state of Colorado late Friday night. The cause? An upstream low pressure system has been hard at work gathering up literally ALL the smoke from massive wildfires burning in California, the Pacific Northwest and southern British Columbia…and guess what? That low pressure system is headed our way!
During July 2021, the summer monsoon pattern tended to favor areas further west with persistent high pressure holding over Colorado. Despite this, with a little luck involved, Boulder managed to notch a Top 20 wettest July, while most of the Front Range was very dry. Other weather highlights during the month included persistent smoke from new fires burning in the Pacific Northwest, multiple bouts of triple-digit heat, highly localized flooding in portions of Boulder, and frequent mudslides across the Mountains which has left Interstate 70 indefinitely closed near Glenwood Springs. Here’s a quick and colorful recap of our weather during July and how it relates to climatology.
This week for the Front Range will feature thunderstorm chances early in the week followed by dry and hot weather for the latter portion. Flash flooding remains a concern through Tuesday, especially for the burn scars, as slow storm motions and monsoonal moisture team up. Very smoky conditions will persist through Wednesday, but some improvement in air quality should develop later in the week. Let’s take a look.
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