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000
FXUS65 KGJT 282324
AFDGJT

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Grand Junction CO
424 PM MST Sun Feb 28 2021

.SHORT TERM...(Tonight through Monday night)
Issued at 249 PM MST Sun Feb 28 2021

Satellite imagery shows a few isolated low level clouds across
northwestern Colorado with an area of scattered cloud cover over the
southern San Juan foothills this afternoon.  No radar returns are
visible in this area.  So, any showers outside of the highest
elevations are lucky to drop virga at best.  As the existing trough
slides to the east this evening, northerly flow takes over tonight.
This, combined with minimal sky cover and surface winds, will lead
to some pretty good radiational cooling tonight.  Some areas could
get even colder tonight than they were last night thanks to clearing
clouds.  Overall, temperatures will climb around 10 degrees going
into Monday.  This is thanks to a ridge that quickly builds into the
area tomorrow.  Otherwise, things should remain fairly quiet in the
short term with fairly calm winds and no precipitation.

.LONG TERM...(Tuesday through Sunday)
Issued at 249 PM MST Sun Feb 28 2021

Higher than normal heights will be transitioning from off the
Pacific Coast into the Western CONUS and bring a warming to trend to
our CWA. These heights will be temporarily interrupted over the 4
Corners region late Thursday into early Friday by a low pressure
system sneaking under the apex of the ridge. The northern and
western shift of this system from a few days ago continues with the
med range models in fair agreement at this point.
Moisture transport vectors on the 300K surface show a decent
subtropical tap and IVT magnitude suggests a weak to moderate AR
moving northeastward across the CA/Baja border by Thursday morning.
This is a more favorable trajectory for getting moisture into our
southern CWA with not too much upstream terrain to interrupt the
flow. Ensemble clusters are also favoring southern Colorado for a
favorable storm track. QPF probability of near a half of an inch in
our southern mountains is looking fairly high at this point. The
challenge with a moist...southern track storm is usually snow levels
and precipitation phase changes and this one will be no different.
The good news is that the few systems have missed the southern
basins and this one is looking much better. The ridge will quickly
rebound behind this system with some disagreement on when the next
system arrives out of the Pacific. Overall we are looking at a
switch to above normal temperatures sticking around for the
week...which is most welcome by this forecaster.

&&

.AVIATION...(For the 00Z TAFS through 00Z Monday evening)
Issued at 421 PM MST Sun Feb 28 2021

FEW to SCT clouds are still impacting mountain TAF sites, as well
as KDRO at this hour, but should clear out after sunset. Skies
will be mostly clear for the remainder of the the TAF period. VFR
conditions will prevail for the next 24 hours.

&&

.GJT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
CO...None.
UT...None.
&&

$$

SHORT TERM...SS
LONG TERM...15
AVIATION...BGB