The State of the Atmosphere: Sunday, July 7th, 2019

Another above average week for precipitation for much of Northeast Colorado, even as we saw drying across much of the rest of the state –– namely east-central and Southeast Colorado. Northern Texas, Oklahoma, and Kansas also had a drier week, with above average precipitation continuing for the northern tier, and across southern Texas:

For the Front Range, the last several days were active ones. Not only for some heavy rainers, but also plenty of damaging hail. The Fourth ended up much wetter than anticipated as dying storms over Nebraska Wednesday night helped aid a good easterly push of moisture up against the Front Range. A similar setup to Thursday led to another round of severe storms Friday, before a quieter (but also not all that hot day) prevailed on Saturday.




The week ahead
As we kick off the second week of July summer weather will be in full swing across the state. Nice and warm each day, with a chance of storms across Eastern Colorado each afternoon.

Today and Monday will feature 30 to 40% storm chances for the urban corridor, with Tuesday –– for the moment anyway –– looking like the driest day of the week. We have a 20% or better chance for storms each afternoon this week aside from Tuesday but of course that could change.

The latest HRRR short term model shows storms pushing off the foothills by early to mid afternoon, and continuing across the plains well into the evening hours. The risk for storms to become sever today is on the low side, but never a zero probability this time of year either. Some hail, and brief heavy rain will be the greatest threats from today's storms:

By Monday a bit better storm coverage, and with it a higher likelihood we see sever storms across the Northeast Plains. Again, Tuesday looks drier before those afternoon storm chances increase once more by midweek and on through the weekend:

Daily highs will be average to just above average most days over the next week+. Monday may be the exception, with MOS guidance showing highs in the low 80s for the urban corridor with those better storm chances. By midweek we should be in the mid to upper 80s, with low to mid 90s be week's end.

For Denver, the European model forecast doesn't look all that bad. Definitely a warming trend to end the week, but for the second week of July not a horribly hot outlook either:

Similar for Colorado Springs, where storm chances will be a bit greater each day than for the the northern urban corridor, and with that temperatures several degrees cooler most afternoons as well:

A large-scale look at the next 10 days or so shows overall a drier pattern for Colorado than we've seen in recent weeks. It's picking up on storm good storm activity for the far eastern Plains, but... for the mountains and I-25 corridor shows a drier outlook overall. I don't see that it's picking up on some of the storm potential we're likely to see this week –– however, it does go a ways to show that storms this week may not be as abundant as we've seen recently, meaning that not everyone sees those storms despite the daily chances.

The QPF map for the region doesn't show anything spectacular either for the state, but is a far cry from bone dry as we see often enough from a seven day precipitation map in early July.

In short, a very typical summer week ahead. Keep an eye on the sky in case a storm develops in your area, otherwise enjoy the summer heat and put those BBQs to work!