The weekly
weather forecast for the high country of Rocky Mountain National Park,
Colorado. Researched and written weekly by professional meteorologist
and avid mountaineer, Dan "the weather man" Gottas.
July2 weather
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Thursday,
July 2nd,
2009
Rocky
Mountain National Park Weather Forecast
Classic
summer weather continued over most of the past week
in the mountains of RMNP.
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The Week in
Review
The
mostly sunny, warm, dry, stable, and calm weather of the
last few days was climatologically characteristic for the end of June,
when the
westerlies typically retreat northward and the North American Monsoon
is still
in its infancy.
The
recent nice weather hasn’t come without a price though,
as much of north central Colorado
experienced the June gloom by CO standards.
In
fact, this past June ended up being the second wettest on record in
the Denver area (4.86 inches of water), while the monthly average
temperature
was over three degrees F below normal.
For RMNP, accumulating
snow periodically continued above 12 kft throughout
the month.
After
another batch of moist, unstable weather moved across
the region last Thursday and Friday, a relatively dry and stable
airmass has
since dominated the RMNP skies.
The
mountain-valley circulation efficiently acted to further minimize
moisture over
the mountains during the morning hours, as drainage flows transported
moisture
down slope and dry air from the upper atmosphere sank over the region.
This
drying trend has allowed for strong radiational surface
cooling and resulted in firm snow conditions during the nighttime and
early morning hours.
With rapidly rising
temperatures during the
daytime hours, the alpine snowpack has been quickly melting away which
has also
produced sloppy traveling conditions during the afternoon.
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(Click chart to enlarge)
East and north faces of Longs Peak on June 30th, 2009.
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The Upcoming Week
Another
surge of moisture is forecast to head our way, as
high pressure over the Texas Panhandle transports subtropical air
northward
into Colorado
on Thursday and Friday.
Expect showers
and thunderstorms during this time, with a peak in storm initiation and
coverage occurring during the unstable daylight hours.
Southwesterly
flow from the eastern Pacific will set up over
the area on Saturday and Sunday. This
will transport drier air into the region, and will decrease the storm
threat
over northern Colorado, as the weekend progresses.
There will still be
enough moisture around to fire a few afternoon
storms over the high terrain, but with much less coverage than the
unsettled
period on Thursday and Friday.
Monday and Tuesday are currently forecast to be the driest
and stable days, with no convective storms or precipitation.
By
Wednesday, moist southerly flow may once
again set up ahead of a west-coast trough of low pressure.
Happy
4th to all!
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The
NWS numerical forecast for
the mountains of RMNP over
the upcoming weekend is as follows:
Click
chart
to enlarge
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Detailed
7-Day
Forecast
The
link above will take you to the National Weather Service
forecast for the
12,000 foot level near Longs Peak.
These
forecasts are derived from computer-generated numerical forecasts, and
are
updated shortly after 3:30 am, 9:30 am, 3:30 pm, and 9:30 pm local
time.
In the lower right-hand corner of the page, one can view forecasts for
other
locations in the Park by clicking on the desired location in the
terrain map.
Do-It-Yourself
Weather Forecast
Links
The
link above provides a list
of web links to various sites
containing a variety of meteorological data and information.
Collectively,
these resources can be used to monitor and study current weather
conditions, as
well short-term, medium-range, and climate forecasts
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