Election Day forecast, 2020

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Great job getting out and voting, Colorado. As of Saturday, nearly 2.5 million Coloradans had already voted in the 2020 general election. That's 86.7% of the total 2016 turnout! Tuesday is Election Day, we hope everyone who hasn't yet voted has a plan to get out and vote – or a plan to drop (not mail!) your ballot at a drop-off box by 7 pm Tuesday.

You can find both polling locations and drop-off locations here: https://www.sos.state.co.us/pubs/elections/VIP.html

In a year that offers plenty of obstacles to voting, the weather this Election Day thankfully won't be one of them.

In fact, outside of the Pacific Northwest, and some some scattered morning rain and snow showers in the Northeast, Tuesday will be a great weather day for getting out and voting across the Lower 48!

For Denver, the weather this coming week will be nothing short of beautiful. Perhaps not what many of the snow-lovers out there want to hear for the first week of November, but highs will be in the 70s each afternoon, with overnight lows in the 30s and 40s.

On Tuesday, the forecast high is 73°F, under mostly sunny skies. The 3-day hourly outlook shows no precipitation in the forecast through Tuesday night:

The weather pattern may turn chillier after the first week of the month here. The PNA teleconnection is forecast to move from quite positive to negative around the 5th, with a transition to a troughier weather pattern across the Western United States through mid month.

If you look at the GEFS forecast for the next 10 days for Denver you'll see warm and dry is the word for the next several days, but a chillier and possibly wetter trend starting around the 8th (albeit quite a bit of uncertainty in just how cold and wet it will be).

This is fairly well agreed on by the other models as well.

Here's a look at the European ensemble mean forecast for the next five days at 500mb – the reds indicate strong ridging in place across much of the country, and thus the warm and quiet outlook for much of the coming week:

The five days ending on the following Saturday (November, 14th) show a highly amplified pattern for next week, with the mean trough in the West, and anomalous warmth being pumped into the Northeast.

What that will equate to east of the mountains exactly remains to be seen, but likely a shift to cooler weather after the first week of the month if nothing else.

Enjoy the mild weather, and get out and vote!