A quick state of the atmosphere this week as I battle a late summer cold, and we more or less coast through the second half of August here.

The last seven days were drier across eastern Colorado than they have been in recent weeks –– though scattered storms today will add a bit to this in a few spots. Main was activity centered across southwest Denver and the western Palmer Divide early in the week, with some storms delivering pockets of heavy rainfall to the far eastern plains yesterday. On the flip side, the mountains which have largely missed on this summer's rain, had a pretty good week:

Average temperatures across eastern Colorado remain below average month-to-date, with Denver now running 1°F below average through the first 25 days of the month. Further east we see anomalies of 2 - 4°F below average, with western Colorado running a few degrees above average on the month:

The week ahead
The week ahead looks mostly uneventful.

The focus will be on a Fire Weather Watch for late Monday morning through Monday evening across eastern Colorado. Wind, heat, and low relative humidity will lead to high fire danger across the area.

The heat and hire fire danger gives way to a cold front Monday evening, which should both drop temperatures for your Tuesday, and perhaps offer the week's best chance of rain behind it as well. MOS guidance has highs in the low 90s for Denver on Monday, but only in the 70s Tuesday.

A look at the GEFS shows Tuesdays rain chances, but has a pretty dry look most of the rest of the week for Denver. We should see storm chances in the 20% range Tuesday afternoon, and perhaps as high as 30% by Tuesday evening.

The remainder of the week will feature highs in the mid 80s in Denver (near average), with low (but likely non-zero) storm chances.

Next weekend the calendar turns to SEPTEMBER! The first month of the "snow season" averaging 1.0" of snow in Denver since record keeping began in 1882. Worth noting, it's been a long time since we've seen measurable snow in September. Is this the year? Perhaps.