National Weather Service Weather Forecast Office

• Home
• Site Map
• News
• Organization
• Search for: NWS All NOAA 

000
FXUS65 KBOU 140542
AFDBOU

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Denver/Boulder CO
1142 PM MDT Sat Apr 13 2024

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Warm and dry conditions for Sunday and Monday.

- Elevated to critical fire weather conditions over the plains
  Monday afternoon.

- A windy weather system will bring snow showers to the mountains
  with rain showers likely on the plains late Monday into Tuesday.

- Cooler, windy and unsettled the rest of the week. Occasional
  snow, showers in the mountains with some chances of rain showers
  for the plains.

&&

.UPDATE...
Issued at 800 PM MDT Sat Apr 13 2024

Current satellite imagery shows clouds are moving out for the
evening. Radar indicates one outflow boundary currently passing
through DIA that will keep winds northeasterly a tad longer,
before transitioning to drainage overnight. Aside from a few
tweaks to wind direction, the current forecast looks to be on
track.

&&

.SHORT TERM /Through Sunday/...
Issued at 127 PM MDT Sat Apr 13 2024

A weak wave embedded in the southwest flow aloft over eastern
Colorado will continue to progress eastward and be east of the
state by early evening. Weak instability, mid level moisture, and
lift from the wave will continue to produce isolated/scattered
high based showers through the afternoon. Low levels of the
airmass are dry, so any rainfall is expected to be very light.
Gusty outflow winds to 50 mph will be possible with the showers,
though most of the gusts should be less than 30 mph. As the wave
shifts east of Colorado and the loss of daytime heating, the
showers quickly come to an end by early evening, if not sooner.
Skies then clear for tonight and for Sunday. Mostly sunny skies
and a warm airmass will push temperatures to above 80 degrees over
much of northeast Colorado Sunday afternoon.

&&

.LONG TERM /Sunday night through Saturday/...
Issued at 300 PM MDT Sat Apr 13 2024

Models have upper ridging pushing eastward Sunday night with
southwesterly flow aloft ahead of an upper low pressure system
moving into Colorado. The tracks of the upper low from the various
models are in less agreement this 12Z run compared to yesterday`s
12Z model runs. Most of them have slowed down a bit as well. The
synoptic scale energy on the QG Omega fields is fairly decent
until 06Z Monday night. The low level pressure and wind fields
show very little to no upslope anywhere over the plains with this
system now. Also, there isn`t much cold air with it. Models do
show a weak cold front to move across late Monday afternoon and
evening but nothing significant. The lows Monday night don`t look
to get below freezing anywhere on the plains. The precipitation
will stay as rain and linger well into Tuesday. There should be a
decent high mountain snowfall with the amount of moisture and
energy progged with this system Monday night and Tuesday. Pops
will now linger well into Tuesday afternoon for much of the CWA
now. For temperatures, Monday`s highs now look to be only a bit
cooler than Sunday`s, with 70s F over all the plains and even lower
80s over the eastern border plains. Tuesday`s highs are in the
60s F over the plains.

For the later days, Wednesday through Saturday, models still have
the strong zonal upper level flow in place for the CWA, but now the
jet maximum is progged to be to our north and not right over
Colorado as the 12Z model runs indicated yesterday.  One of the
major changes with this is that the temperatures over the plains
will get into the 60s F Wednesday before the cold front moves in
during the afternoon.  Temperature and thickness fields also show
that we do not get as cold Thursday through Saturday as was
previously indicated. There is some moisture in place and limited
QPF for some of the CWA all four days, but less than yesterday`s
runs indicated.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z TAFS through 06Z Monday/...
Issued at 1137 PM MDT Sat Apr 13 2024

VFR conditions will prevail for all terminals through the TAF
period, with some FEW-SCT high clouds at/above FL180 Sunday
afternoon.

Current southeasterly flow in the vicinity of KDEN will transition
over to more typical southerly drainage flow within the next 2-3
hours. On Sunday, a well-mixed environment should produce enhanced
southeasterly winds most of the day with gusts at times exceeding
20 kts, mainly for KDEN/KAPA. This robust southeasterly flow could
hold together longer than usual into the evening and early
overnight period, with some guidance even suggesting a little
strengthening after ~2100 MT as pre-frontal southeast flow aloft
continues to mix down to the surface due to a late decoupling
(i.e. inversion development). Eventually, weaker drainage flow
should return Sunday night.

&&

.FIRE WEATHER...
Issued at 300 PM MDT Sat Apr 13 2024

It will be warm with highs around 80 degrees and relative humidity
falling into the 10-14 percent range over northeast Sunday
afternoon. Southerly winds will prevail and slowly increase
through the afternoon with gusts approaching 25 mph over the
eastern plains, which will elevate the fire danger.

Warm temperatures and low humidity levels along with fairly strong
surface winds will likely cause critical fire weather conditions
Monday afternoon and early evening for the the eastern and
southern plains. For the rest of the week, cooler, more moist
conditions will keep critical fire weather conditions at bay.

&&

.BOU WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.

&&

$$

UPDATE...Bonner
SHORT TERM.....Meier
LONG TERM......RJK
AVIATION...Rodriguez
FIRE WEATHER...Meier/RJK