813
FXUS65 KBOU 281902
AFDBOU

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Denver/Boulder CO
102 PM MDT Wed Oct 28 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Mild and mostly dry through the work week.

- Unsettled weather returns late this weekend and early next week.
  Mountain snow is likely (>70% chance) above 8500ft during this
  time. High uncertainty remains for the foothills and plains.

&&

.DISCUSSION /Through Wednesday/...
Issued at 1231 PM MDT Wed Oct 28 2026

A weak front is currently moving south through our forecast area
as of 12:45pm. Behind the front, winds have turned more northerly,
with gusts around 15 to 25mph. Overall the impact of the front
will be limited, with the exception of the brief wind shift
today. Light winds and mostly clear skies could allow for another
morning of low clouds and fog for the eastern plains. Weak
downsloping and lower moisture will likely prevent fog from
developing in the urban corridor, but we could see some patchy fog
with visiblities below 1 mile further east/northeast. Any low
clouds and fog that developed overnight will dissipate by the mid
to late morning. Moisture will increase at upper levels (300mb)
on Thursday, leading to an increase in high cloud cover for the
afternoon. High temperatures will be a few degrees cooler
tomorrow for much of the plains, compared to today.

Remnants from Tropical Storm Vance are forecast to be absorbed
into the southwest flow aloft, moving through West Texas Thursday
and Friday towards eastern CO and Kansas for late Friday. Right
now, models have the bulk of the moisture moving to our east. But,
a weak shortwave could still produce enough lift for some light
rain showers across the far eastern plains late Friday. On
Saturday, another shortwave is forecast to move over the area. But
this activity should primarily be confined to the mountains,
where moisture will be more prevalent.

There is still a lot of uncertainty with the system late Sunday
into early next week. Here are a few things we do know with this
system: a strong upper trough/low will move near or over the area
sometime late Sunday into early Tuesday, a strong cold front will
move through at some point late Sunday into late Monday, and this
system will bring strong lift and increased precipitation chances
for at least portions of the area. The things that are still very
uncertain this far out and will have significant influence on the
potential impacts in our area: the track of the upper level low
and development of the surface low (aka the exact direction of the
winds/potential for upslope and area of highest forcing), the
surface temperatures behind the front which will have impacts on
precip type, how the subtropical jet and trough will interact with
the deep trough moving out of the Northwest, and if moisture will
be able to wrap around the low as it moves east of the area.

Models are showing very strong winds behind the front, with speeds
around 40kts to 70kts at 700mb on the back side of the low. If
the low ends up tracking in a way where there`s a more easterly
component to these strong winds, precipitation chances and
amounts in the foothills and adjacent plains would look much more
promising. Right now, the best chance for precipitation and snow
will be in the higher terrain with snow levels starting the event
around 10kft to 11kft and gradually dropping closer to 6,500 to
7,000ft by Tuesday morning. Snow chances for areas below 7,000 ft
remain low (

NWS BOU Office Area Forecast Discussion