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Cooler Thursday with a touch of snow The moderately strong southwest flow aloft we've been dealing with for the last several days has weakened and turned more westerly today. The disorganized trough across the West is not looking so disorganized anymore as most of the energy has consolidated into a single cut-off low along the California/Baja border. The disturbance that …

The disorganized Pacific trough of low pressure across the western half of the country continues to be the story today. The main core of the trough remains just offshore from northern California (see red "L" below). To the east, several weak embedded shortwaves are evident (red dashed lines below). One such wave will be moving across Colorado through the afternoon …

The stagnant pattern over the CONUS remains today with the ridge now centered slightly further east in the southern Plains and the trough located over California. East of the trough, a strong southwesterly jet streak is embedded. This jet continues to pump plenty of mid and upper-level moisture northward. You don't have to take my word for it. Here's the …

The big ridge is in full-control today. The GFS 500 mb height anomaly map below for this evening shows that the ridge axis has passed with a deep fetch of southwest flow spreading into Colorado. In this southwest flow, a pocket of elevated moisture has developed thick clouds across the area last night. As of mid-day, the all-sky camera on …

High pressure is well in control today. As seen in the surface pressure map below, the surface high pressure is positioned across western Colorado and eastern Utah. To the east, a "lee" trough has set up for this afternoon, a classic signature of downslope warming. Basically, the air blows from high to low pressure. Under today's scenario, lower surface pressure …

Yesterday's weak trough has pushed out and behind it is a nice ridge of high pressure that will slowly build today and strengthen over the weekend. Highs were on the chilly side yesterday, but that all changes this afternoon. After another cold start, we warm up to about 50 degrees this afternoon (below). It's going to be a crystal clear …

We'll be starting out a little warmer this morning due to a thick deck of mid and upper-level clouds present across the area. These clouds are associated with elevated moisture embedded in the southwest flow that is established aloft. The southwest flow is a result of today's major weather feature transiting across the Rockies: a weak but absolutely bone-dry trough. …