National Weather Service Forecast Discussion |
Thornton Weather Forecast Today's Forecast Story |
864 FXUS65 KBOU 071127 AFDBOU Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Denver/Boulder CO 527 AM MDT Tue Apr 7 2026 .KEY MESSAGES... - Limited, mainly alpine pops this afternoon and Wednesday afternoon. - Higher chances for late day pops (30-70%) across much of the forecast area both Thursday and Friday. - Elevated to fire weather conditions over the plains, foothills and mountains parks Wednesday afternoon. - Unsettled weather pattern Saturday through Tuesday with decent chances of precipitation across the CWA. && .DISCUSSION /Through Monday/... Issued at 1135 PM MDT Mon Apr 6 2026 Weak east and northeasterly winds continue in place over the plains at this hour. Models keep the weak upslope going all night with no drainage winds expected. There are a few light showers over the eastern border area currently, but not sure if any precipitation is hitting the ground? Current temperatures are in the mid 30s to lower 40s across all the plains. Skies will continue to be mostly cloudy for the CWA overnight with weak upper troughing to move across into Tuesday morning. Models have the flow aloft going northwesterly by this afternoon and continuing into Wednesday night. Then, 40-50 knot zonal jet level flow is in place through Friday morning. By later Friday, southwesterly flow aloft commences ahead of West Coast troughing. The QG Omega fields show very weak synoptic scale energy from Tuesday trough Friday for the CWA. Thickness grids point to a weak cold front getting into the northeast corner Wednesday afternoon then across the rest of the plains Wednesday overnight. There looks to be another cold front Thursday overnight. That one looks a tad stronger than Wednesday night`s. For moisture, there is a lot in the mid and upper levels overnight tonight into Tuesday morning. There looks to be enough for some 20-40% pops this afternoon mainly for the mountains, foothills and Palmer Ridge. Moisture is pretty limited on Wednesday now warranting only 10-30% pops by afternoon for the CWA. By Thursday, moisture increases and there is enough instability for 30-60% pops during the afternoon and evening for most of the forecast area. Friday has even better looking moisture with similar instability so will go with 40-70% late day pops. There will be elevated fire weather conditions Wednesday afternoon with the humidity levels dropping into the 13-20 percent range over the western and southern plains, and the high mountain parks. Wind speeds are not very strong however, so no highlights. For temperatures, highs will continue to be above seasonal normals all four days. Tuesday`s will be in the mid 60s to lower 70s over the plains. Wednesday and Thursday`s highs will be in the lower to mid 70s for the plains with Friday`s highs cooling down into the 60s. For the later days, Saturday through Tuesday, moist southwesterly flow aloft is progged on Saturday and Sunday with a weakening upper trough/closed low over the southwestern Unites States pushing east- northeastward into Colorado by Sunday afternoon. Another upper low and trough takes a similar track for Monday and Tuesday. Models continue to show pretty decent moisture in the southwesterly flow aloft for this time of year and they point to a fairly wet period with temperatures remaining above seasonal normals. && .AVIATION /12Z TAFS through 12Z Wednesday/... Issued at 523 AM MDT Tue Apr 7 2026 VFR conditions should prevail through the TAF period. While a stratus deck east of the terminals is evident via GOES nighttime microphysics imagery, the edge of that stratus deck has been quite slow to advect back to the west, and has generally settled along a line from KFMM to KLIC. There`s still an outside chance of an hour or two of some lower clouds trying to push towards DEN, but not enough to justify the previous TEMPO. Meanwhile, the rest of the day should feature generally light winds with an east/southeast component most of the day. There could still be a few gusty showers during the afternoon hours, with DCAPE values near 1000 J/kg suggesting gust potential of around 25-30kt. Most CAMs favor the southern/southeastern half of the metro... where we`ve maintained the PROB30 at APA/DEN for some gusts this afternoon. Winds should quickly turn towards drainage this evening, then slowly turn clockwise overnight into Wednesday morning. && .BOU WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... None. && $$ DISCUSSION...66 AVIATION...Hiris