Louisville, Colorado 7 Day Weather Forecast

Wx Forecast - Wx Discussion - Wx Aviation

075
FXUS65 KBOU 022217
AFDBOU

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Denver/Boulder CO
417 PM MDT Wed Apr 2 2025

.KEY MESSAGES...

- A wave of precipitation will move across our forecast area on
  Thursday. This will bring 1-7" of snow to the mountains,
  foothills, and Palmer Divide. The plains will see mostly snow
  with rain mixing and little accumulation.

- More rain and snow showers Friday into Saturday, with light snow
  accumulations across the Foothills and Palmer Divide.

- Warmer and drier next week.

&&

.SHORT TERM /Through Thursday/...
Issued at 350 PM MDT Wed Apr 2 2025

Radar shows some light showers over the plains and higher terrain.
These showers are not amounting to much and minimal impacts are
expected.

Winds will become weaker tonight and will eventually turn to the
east. There will be some small areas of fog over the far eastern
plains as more moisture moves into the area. The majority of the
night will be dry as the forcing will not arrive to our forecast
area yet.

A shortwave trough that is currently over Arizona will move
northeastward over our CWA on Thursday. There will be 700-500 mb
frontogenesis along with light low level upslope winds that will
provide further forcing to develop a wave of precipitation.
Ensemble guidance has decreased the QPF from this system a decent
amount. All global ensembles have between 0.1-0.2" QPF for Denver
and Monument Hill for tomorrow. This actually seems low to me and
it is possible the models have not been able to fully capture the
recent precipitation that has fallen since models seem to have
dew points that are too low. The high resolution models indicate
there will be pockets of higher QPF especially over the far
northeast corner where up to 0.5" of QPF may fall. Temperatures
across the plains will be in the mid 30s when the heaviest band
of precipitation will move through and most of the precipitation
will fall as snow. However, given it is April, the roadways will
likely only be wet so minimal travel impacts are expected. Over
the Palmer Divide, there will be colder temperatures that could
lead to a couple inches of accumulation. Some slushy conditions
could impact travel especially on I-25 over monument hill. The
foothills and Front Range mountains will be the trickiest part of
the forecast. Often times in these events that come up from the
south with frontogenesis, the foothills and northern I-25 corridor
can miss out on some of the precipitation. So while the models
may have too little precipitation over the eastern plains, models
may have too much over the foothills. The forecast has generally
2-6" of snow in the foothills and 3-7" in the mountains. Since
most of it will fall during the daytime, the roads should just be
slushy and not completely snow-covered. Because of that, along
with the chance that the lower end of the range of snow totals
verifies for the foothills, no highlights were issued.

&&

.LONG TERM /Thursday night through Wednesday/...
Issued at 350 PM MDT Wed Apr 2 2025

A cool/unsettled pattern will continue through the first half of
the weekend, as a broad upper trough continues to meander across
the region.

The upper trough should eventually close off over the desert
southwest Thursday night/Friday morning, and will then track
eastward across far southern AZ/NM through Friday night. At 700mb,
there isn`t a well-defined circulation, but guidance does push
some cooler air into the region during the day Friday, with a
modest increase in upslope flow as well. Recent guidance continues
to trend away towards a more significant storm, with a majority
of ECME/CMCE/GEFS ensemble members showing less than a quarter
inch of precipitation across most of Denver... a solution that is
also generally supported by their deterministic/AIFS counterparts.
We`ll likely see rain and snow showers for much of the day Friday
into Saturday, especially across the lower foothills into the
south/west metro where shallow upslope can still produce some
meaningful QPF. Precipitation chances should diminish east of I-25
into the northeast plains. Generally light snow accumulations are
forecast at this point, but we`ll need to continue to watch model
trends over the next day or so. Temperatures on both Friday and
Saturday will be below normal... with highs around 40F for the
Denver area.

The second half of the weekend should be much warmer, as ridging
begins to build across the intermountain west. Highs bounce back
into the 50s across the plains, with partly cloudy skies.

Next week should feature a continued warming trend across the
region. Temperatures on Monday should be near or a little above
normal across the plains, with warmer weather likely by mid-week.
A shortwave is expected to race across the area Tuesday into
Tuesday night, with some light snow showers across the mountains
and a few rain showers over the plains. The GFS is quite bullish
with this while other guidance is dry across the lower elevations.
A stronger ridge looks likely to develop Wednesday and persist
through the end of next week, with good agreement on well above
normal temperatures in this period.

&&

.AVIATION /18Z TAFS through 18Z Thursday/...
Issued at 320 PM MDT Wed Apr 2 2025

VFR conditions are expected through tonight. Westerly winds have
now become more persistent this afternoon and will be that way
through just before sunset. Winds will be light this evening and
then will trend to drainage overnight.

Precipitation will then become the concern on Thursday. A broad
area of rain/snow showers will come up from the south and will
move over all terminals during the morning hours. Ceilings will
likely be in the 1,000-3,000 foot range with visibility possible
getting down to 1 SM under the heavier showers. These low clouds
with light precipitation will generally be around from 15-00Z.

&&

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

&&

$$

SHORT TERM...Danielson
LONG TERM...Hiris
AVIATION...Danielson