After six weeks of intermittent rain and heavy thunderstorms, sunny, hot weather is forecast to invade the Front Range over the next five days; afternoon highs are expected to be in the 90s F, with overnight lows in the lower 60s. The culprit will be a high pressure ridge, moving up from the Desert Southwest, which will divert Pacific storms to the north and produce a downsloping air flow east of the Continental Divide.
While this hot, sunny period will surely dry out the soggy landscape, it may actually exacerbate flooding along the South Platte and its tributaries. A heavy snowpack persists in the higher mountains and snowmelt will accelerate in the mild air (even though afternoon temperatures on the alpine tundra are, on average, some twenty degrees cooler than those along the urban corridor).
Having griped about cloudy, cool, rainy weather for much of the spring, we are now free to rant about oppressive summer heat, at least for the next five days. We humans love to complain about the weather even though many glorious days are spaced throughout the year, a fact that is especially true in the dry, sunny climate of the Colorado Front Range.
