126
FXUS65 KBOU 011923
AFDBOU

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Denver/Boulder CO
1223 PM MST Sun Mar 1 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Warm and dry Monday, with near-critical fire weather conditions
  across the Palmer Divide.

- Mountain snow and low-elevation rain likely (>80% chance) Monday
  night into Tuesday evening, favoring areas north of I-70.

- Potential for colder storm system with widespread snow Thursday
  night through Friday, although uncertainty in amounts remains
  elevated.

&&

.DISCUSSION /Through Sunday/...
Issued at 1212 PM MST Sun Mar 1 2026

A cooler air mass is in place today following last night`s backdoor
front in the plains, and weak shortwave which produced 1-3" of snow
in our mountains. With exception of the higher mountains above the
inversion, our 24-hr temperature trends range from around 5 degrees
cooler in the mountain valleys to up to 25 degrees cooler than this
time yesterday for our northeast plains. These more seasonal
conditions will be interrupted again Monday, as warmer southwesterly
subsident flow returns and pushes highs into the lower 70`s across
portions of the plains and urban corridor, potentially even
approaching daily records in a few locations. Some of the southwest
winds aloft will surface across our mountains and Palmer Divide,
producing near-critical fire weather conditions for the latter where
gusts 25-30 mph may briefly develop.

The passage of a positively-tilted shortwave over the region on
Tuesday will bring some snow showers to our mountains beginning
Monday night, with rain showers spreading into the lower elevations
during the day Tuesday. Trends indicate a slight northward shift in
the moisture trajectory in the past 24 hrs, increasing confidence in
most of the precipitation remaining north of the I-70 corridor.
Temperatures will be too warm to support snow accumulation for the
lower elevations, though a wintry mix isn`t out of the question
later in the day for the northeast plains and perhaps the Palmer
Divide. Precipitation amounts look to range between 0.10-0.30" for
the plains, with our northern mountains receiving 2-6" of snow,
although even a small continued northerly shift in the storm track
would reduce these further.

Dry conditions and a rebound in temperatures (back into the 60`s for
the lower elevations) can be expected for Wednesday into Thursday
ahead of the arrival of our next system which, wouldn`t you know it,
is a messy one (quite typical for this of the year). The synoptic
interactions become complex late in the week, with an initial
shortwave favored to traverse the Central Rockies as a secondary low
attempts to simultaneously detach from its parent trough and eject
southwestward towards AZ/SoCal. It`s a complicated pattern that
lends itself to considerable variance in weather impacts for
Colorado depending on subtle nuances with respective tracks and
development of lee cyclogenesis. The mountains are less dependent on
these differences and thus confidence in winter weather impacts is
slightly higher (compared to our lower elevations) for the Thursday
night through Friday timeframe, but snowfall amounts remain a
large question mark regardless. Meanwhile, plains and urban
corridor impacts are less defined. That being said, cold air aloft
will be more expansive with this tandem of upper-level lows, and
thus would support snow and not rain if lower-elevation precip
does materialize. Some degree of upslope flow could also be in the
mix depending on the scenario, which would boost impacts for
portions of the Front Range, but it`s too early to discern such
details. Drier and milder conditions are then favored to return
for the weekend.

&&

.AVIATION /18Z TAFS through 18Z Monday/...
Issued at 1037 AM MST Sun Mar 1 2026

VFR conditions will persist through the TAF period. Fairly light
(

NWS BOU Office Area Forecast Discussion