 Welcome to the weather forecast for the week beginning Wednesday, June 15th, 2022. I'm Chief Meteorologist John Insworth for Longmont Public Media. Last quarter moon, it's Tuesday, June 21st. So that's only going to be visible if you go out in the early morning sky. The sun over the month and we'll stop probably taking a look at this month animation. But here's four weeks ago, three weeks ago, two weeks ago. And then this week, a lot of sunspot activity is either rotated around the monthly cycle rotation of the sun or some new ones popped up. So kind of interestingly, the sun is pretty active right now. The date of June 21st is also the first day of summer. 3.13 a.m. mountain time is when it precisely occurs. We are in meteorological summer, have been since the first of June and now we will be in astronomical summer. Taking a look at draw conditions, we had definitely a few good shots of rain. And so taking a look carefully here on the plains, a lot of relief has occurred in the northeast and eastern plains. Looking nationally, watch the margins here. On the plains you'll see some bettering of conditions, if that's the word. A little better out on the Oregon area, a little worse in Utah. This will definitely be the last time we have to take a look at snow, water equivalent in Colorado, taking a look at the animation through the season. Trying to get these to match and it's quite a battle in PowerPoint. We saw a big snowstorm there. They brought us back to nearly 100%. Here we are really at the end of the snow season. We're at 55%, but take a look at how much that is. There's not supposed to be much snow around at this time anyway in June. Taking a look at precipitation, not much happened in the western slopes. We did get a few batches of thunderstorms forming largely east of I-25, tracking to the northeast. There was strong activity in the southern part of the state over the week. Looking at our animation of expected severe weather, going into April, May, second week of May, third week of May. The first, second, and third week of June. This is pretty much the peak time. This is the highest chances of severe weather. We're right now not seeing anything potential, but you should keep an eye on Sunday, Monday, and we'll see if storms come back and can form, they could go severe. It's possible. So looking over the next few days, Wednesday completely high and dry, Thursday a chance of storms returns, Friday storms larger in the western two-thirds of the state. Nothing severe, as severe as stuff was way out here in the eastern U.S. Looking at the surface analysis map, we are still behind a bit of a cool front. It doesn't feel that cool anymore. It's getting pretty warm on Wednesday here, and this is moderating very rapidly. So we see Friday and a little moisture comes into the mountains. Saturday we've got the western part of the state with a warm front coming up bringing the heat. So yeah, Friday and Saturday should be pretty toasty. Bad news with smoke. We do have fires in Arizona, lots of stuff ongoing in New Mexico, and as the winds shift around to the southwest, that smoke will come back in Thursday morning and be pretty widespread across the state. It's all coming in from the south, but unfortunately it's going to be hazy, and as moisture comes back, we're going to lose sight of the mountains at times. Normal high temperatures are rising from 82 to 86. This is definitely summertime now, normal low 52 to 55, and you can see by Friday and then into next week there will be moisture around with some chances of afternoon thunderstorms. You'll see them pop up over the mountains and move down to the plains in the afternoon, clear up in the evening as things stabilize just for the daily pulsing of thunderstorms. You're definitely way above normal at the beginning of the period here, and then later next week we kind of stay within the normal envelope of temperatures. So for Wednesday we have really dry air. This is the water vapor satellite image and the reds and oranges are below very dry atmosphere, below normal amounts of moisture. The grays and whites are pretty moist throughout the atmosphere. The purples and blues are high clouds, cirrus, ice crystals and things like that. Going to Friday, here's the extreme heat with this big ridge parked over the center of the nation. There's this trough over here that's coming in, and by Sunday it's close enough to be transporting moisture in and also providing some lift. So we're making the atmosphere more unstable by bringing cold air in aloft. And so that looks like a band of rain, showers and thunderstorms coming up through the mountains like that. A little tropical system in the Gulf, another one here on the Pacific side of Mexico. So on Monday noon you can see above normal precipitable water in the green. This is very dry below normal precipitable water in the brown. These are two tropical systems down here. And so the moisture is there for rain and showers. And then throughout the week, I just picked out another day Thursday next week, the moisture pretty much stays in place. We'll see this in the animation too, but in the summer, this is what is an indication of chances of storms as having above normal amounts of moisture available. So here we are, 500 millibars, looking at the jet stream, the ridge is bone dry, sinking air and heat. And you can see it's starting to ooze off the weekend. Here comes the next trough. By Sunday, Monday, we have our chance of showers and thunderstorms. Even Tuesday as the trough passes, the ridge is over, baking the Great Lakes in the east, kind of zonal east-west flow into the middle of next week. And then by the end of next week, the ridge is re-establishing itself in the west. Okay, here's our current cold front, kind of washing out. It doesn't get very far. The heat really builds by the end of the week. Under that ridge, here comes the next trough with cool air with it. Another cold front in the east, coming down. You see those blooms of blue or the afternoon thunderstorms dropping cooler air with the rain. Here comes that cold front. Thunderstorm showers like that on Tuesday, and then they move down to our south. And the heat kind of comes back, after the thunderstorms again, and the heat is around late next week. So, taking a look at this tropical moisture availability, we are very dry at the beginning of the thing here. It was the heat on Friday, and for the weekend, the moisture really does come in. Lots of moisture for the western slopes, for the storms. And to Monday, and Tuesday, it's still lingering around until it finally gets pushed away. So, yep, that's our big chance starting kind of Saturday night and going through Tuesday afternoon showers and thunderstorms. And that's very impressive on the animation for a future radar precipitation. Here's Friday just baking in the heat. A little stuff on the western slopes from Saturday for Sunday. You can see it gets a little more filled in. And then more showers and storms Sunday to Monday. There's Tuesday. And then by Tuesday, Wednesday, it's pushed to our south. Over the next five days, the GFS gives most of this date nothing. There's a little bit up here in the northeast, northwest corner. Over the next 10 days, though, it's kind of optimistic. I mean, we get a quarter inch or so around Lawn Mott. Denver is in a little hole. I feel better for them. Some serious rain here. It must have thunderstorm complexes that just keep moving over the same spot or something. I'm not really sure that is three and a half inches of rain. And over the next 10 days, a little patch of snow in the higher elevations on northeast of Durango. So looking up the next seven days. Wednesday, we're back to the 90s. Thursday and Friday we approach 100. Over the weekend, we cool a little bit as high moisture comes in. It's harder to heat the atmosphere when it does contain more moisture. So we drop back down draw 90 into next week. We have really low chances of a storm going into the end of the weekend. Chances pick up really well into Sunday. And then stay pretty good into the early part of next week. We do have for this show, our first tropical system to look at. We have hurricane, I think that's to be pronounced blaze. Not sure. Just became a hurricane today on Wednesday. And it's going to be tracking off to the west as most of these do. Sometimes they get pulled into the westerlies and come into the desert southwest. But this one may contribute to the moisture flow that we get, but the storm itself is heading off to the west. For frequent weather updates and local news, check out Longmontleer.com and Broomfieldleader.com This has been chief meteorologist Jeninsworth, asking you to keep looking up.