 Hi there, welcome to the weather forecast discussion for Longmont, Colorado the week beginning Thursday April 30th We're heading into May everybody. I'm Chief Meteorologist John is worth for Longmont public media Monday May the 4th May the 4th be with you. I've got to do that We have a moon between first quarter and full so quite well illuminated Coming up at 616 p.m. So we'll be up before sunset Let's take a look at the water vapor image again. If you are just new to these Briefings we have reds and oranges as dry sinking air and the gray whites as being moist and often rising air The purples are high clouds or very cold temperatures aloft. Here's a big thunderstorm complex that formed in the Texas, Oklahoma area last night and has been drifting to the east southeast As part of this trough down here the red line is a trough a dip in the atmosphere a lowering of the heights of the Atmosphere and the big blue lines are ridges areas of Higher pressure you can see that the air flow here is up and over the ridge Down to the trough up again over this ridge and down So the ridge trough patterning the upper atmosphere really gives us an idea of the weather that we're gonna have We're gonna have storminess in and to the right of troughs usually So let's take a look a little bit forward in time to Thursday morning about when this goes up The ridge is drifted to the east There's a trough coming on the west coast that wasn't visible in the satellite image Then we have our trough that has a thunderstorm complex south of Houston now down to the deep south heading for Florida with a Pretty strong cut off low south of the Great Lakes, and we have a ridge off the east coast This big ridge here is going to give us all the heat for Thursday Record high for that day. I believe in Denver over 90 so last week and Into the early part of this week it looked like that might be able to be matched or broken I don't think so now. I think I'll stay in the mid to upper 80s It's strong, but maybe not that strong to produce record heat For Thursday night of this warm front to our East we're in the what's called the warm sector of this system here with a little front coming down I've got storminess in the northern inner mountain west and That is going to be coming down to affect us Later in the week here For Friday is that front comes closer. We'll see a chance of convection So you might get some thunder in with the rain showers will be moving in nothing is severe In this map is no severe weather expected And I think that that's a very good forecast. I'm not concerned about any large hail or tornadoes Especially around here not yet. Just wait till next month and beyond So Friday night what we have is a low not a very strong low But a low kind of organizing in the Texas Oklahoma Penn Handle area We have that front drifting in and down to here and we'll have East southeast flow into the state bringing moisture from the Great Plains from the Gulf of Mexico Up into northern Colorado a little bit of upslope a little bit of cold air aloft Little ripples in the atmosphere passing will all give us a chance of some rain showers and just that little bit of thunderstorm action as well Now this is really strong with that thunderstorm Complex heading off at the front that was associated with that a lot of the Great Plains moisture has been pushed out into the Gulf for now Saturday a little bit of more a little bit more moisture will return to the Plains Low does strengthen a little bit more giving us a little more upslope We'll have probably chance of thunder Again with the rain showers largely in the afternoon and evening when daytime heating makes the lower atmosphere more unstable So it's kind of a hybrid Early spring light spring feel here right after a taste of summer temperatures on Thursday The amount of precipitation we can look to see is In the quarter inch to half inch area around Longmont, maybe around Boulder a little bit more a little bit more Wester four Collins the Palmer divide might get closer to three quarters of an inch or half inch So nice little nice little water shot to the front range Take a looking at the next ten days. We have temperatures here in this bumpy up and down line This is early morning at the low temperatures Mid-afternoon for the highest temperatures. I've drawn in the normal lows and normal high temperatures for this time of year We are definitely above normal Thursday and even Friday And we go back to very normal temperature regime beyond that freezing is down below the blue line and so We are maybe next Friday. We have a chance of some the colder air, but Not too excited about that. This is the ensemble runs for precipitation out at the bottom They run the GFS model number different times different parameters and see how consistent it is and for the Friday night and sorry night storms. There's a lot of agreement for Friday night, it's not a lot of precipitation a little more substantial Friday night Sorry, sorry night a little bit later Saturday. So there's no chance of thunderstorms and some water beyond that it becomes very kind of scattered until later in the week where maybe Some what better storm signals starting to show up Let's put this all in motion taking a look at the 500 middle bar map Again, let me explain the colors in the lines first and as it comes back around we'll talk about the weather So the red colors here are above normal heights The blue colors are below normal heights the height of the 500 middle bar level gives you an idea of where these storms and High-pressure ridges are It's how high you have to go up into the atmosphere above sea level To you find half pressure See levels about a thousand a little bit more than a thousand middle bars So coming around we're up to May 10th. So here we go The winds are usually blowing at this level right along these lines So Thursday the beginning of the cycle here We've got that big ridge giving us near record temperatures that kind of depresses Friday into Saturday is A short-wave trough pushes in and a larger trough is approaching from the west By the end of the weekend There's still some ridginess over us and to our east until Monday Tuesday when a trough passes through the northern Rockies The ridge kind of reestablishes itself on the west coast getting pretty strong out there They're gonna have some good heat in California and Pacific Northwest by the end of next week We have Northwest flown at the end of next week bringing cold air down And giving us a chance of storminess as we said last week Northwest flowing any little ripple can kick stuff off So looking out for the next seven days a more detail Thursday through Friday pre-warm 80s Chance of showers coming in in the afternoon evening overnight Friday Saturday a repeat But a little cooler than a little moisture with the evening showers Little rumble of thunder or two possible Sunday. We dry out Bonds back briefly to the low 80s and then another front comes in cooling us down to the upper 60s Tuesday low 70s Wednesday, but dry let's check in on moisture in the soil for the state the northern mountains and much of Northern Colorado is in pretty good shape eastern plains are just starting to see a little bit of drought Show up the southern counties are a more severe drought. So things are down there could benefit from some Rain and that isn't coming over the next seven days or so the south Western part of the states also looking pretty dry. So do do Dance for some rain The May outlook from the From Noah the kind of prediction center Is not available yet. So I do have the April through June Outlook April was below normal temperatures right until the end here and we were above normal precipitation So that's kind of I guess in there if the forecast was right But for this April through June period basically spring We have above normal temperatures expected and Very near normal precipitation Next week. I'll have the the May forecast to put out there I'll try to scare up the April summary so we can compare the last April with this April from our local news and Updates take a look at longmontobserver.org I also post more frequent weather updates and even sometimes hourly things as Storms progress. So check out longmontobserver.org for that This has been your weather forecast for the week beginning Thursday April 30th I'm Chief meteorologist John Unsworth for Longmont Public Media. Keep looking out