Big weather swing arrives tonight. As of this writing, the cold front is moving into the northeastern corner of the state. You can see it in the surface map graphic on the right in the images i posted below. It will arrive later tonight. HIgh temperatures for Wednesday will occur while you sleep. Well stay in the 40s...with a few 30s on the plains until the front arrives and the temp starts to fall. On the left is a meteogram. I know it’s a bit of overload, but the top portion of the graphic shows model forecasted temperatures. “07/12” is 5 am tomorrow morning. Notice the red line continues to drop through the morning and then doesn’t move much the rest of the day (moving toward the 08/00), which is 5pm tomorrow. Expect temps in the upper teens/low 20s for most of the day. This model shows the cold air backing up the Arkansas River valley and the Fountain Creek drainage into our region. This is typical of extremely shallow air masses, as is this one. Notice the purple symbol in the section below the temperature at “07/12” that looks like a sideways “S” with a dot in it. That is the symbol for freezing drizzle. Any amount of freezing drizzle on the roads can make for dangerous travel and so this always piques my interest. I can tell you that models do not forecast freezing drizzle around here very well. Upon analysis of soundings (vertical slice of the temperature and moisture profile) over Colorado Springs from this same forecast model, I can tell you that this isn’t a classic freezing drizzle setup, but I can’t rule it out. Gut says we are more likely to have freezing fog that sticks to the trees on the windward side, but we’ll need to watch that carefully. Freezing drizzle, if it develops can make a mess of things. Clouds, fog, freezing fog and flurries will move in almost immediately behind the arrival of the front before people are waking up tomorrow. Any flurries or light snow will be very light and any snow accumulation will be minimal. Overall, I expect a gray and wintry feeling type of day. My hunch is that the roads will generally remain ok, unless freezing drizzle develops on a widespread basis. We’ll need to keep a watch on that. Temperature wise, while it will be chilly it now looks like wind chill values, aren’t very likely to get much below zero. Because this airmass is so shallow, many mountain areas will be noticeably warmer than the plains on Wednesday. By Wednesday afternoon, Woodland Park may be 20 degrees warmer than Colorado Springs!
Posted on: Wed, 07 Jan 2015 01:57:09 +0000
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