261
FXUS65 KBOU 010525
AFDBOU

Area Forecast Discussion
National Weather Service Denver/Boulder CO
1025 PM MST Sat Jan 31 2026

.KEY MESSAGES...

- Dry and above normal temperatures through Tuesday.

- Next chance (20-40%) of snow for the area, mainly the mountains
  and Palmer Divide, is later Tuesday into early Wednesday. For
  now snowfall amounts look light.

- Warm and dry for the end of next week into the weekend.


&&

.DISCUSSION /Through Saturday/...
Issued at 150 PM MST Sat Jan 31 2026

Gusty northwest winds across the plains this afternoon will
weaken quickly around sunset with decoupling. With lighter winds
tonight and mostly clear skies, radiational cooling will allow
seasonably cool low temperatures across the area. Expect single
digits in the coldest mountain valley spots, and teens elsewhere
in the high country. Also expect teens for the low river valley
spots across the plains, and 20s elsewhere other than along the
base of the foothills and urban heat islands near Denver where it
should remain in the low 30s. There is not expected to be any fog
Sunday morning.

A persistent ridge just west of Colorado will continue to keep us
dry with above normal temperatures tomorrow through most of
Tuesday. The ridge flattens out early next week, giving us more
zonal flow but any weak short wave troughs look to remain well to
our north until late Tuesday. It`s remarkable that a look at
available ensemble output from AI models, and the GFS/EC--not a
single member of any of them produces any precip across our CWA
through until maybe Tuesday despite northwest flow aloft. Thus,
between now and then, mild and dry weather is expected with high
temperatures across the plains and urban corridor reaching the
upper 50s to low 60s tomorrow and Monday, but a little cooler with
a cold front on Tuesday keeping highs in the low 50s. The
mountain valleys will be pretty warm tomorrow and Monday with
highs in the mid 40s, but when the ridge flattens on Tuesday
cooler air aloft overspreads the mountains, resulting in cooler
highs on Tuesday in the mid 30s. Winds will be breezy across the
northeast plains of Colorado each afternoon, with north winds on
Monday gusting over 30 mph, then Tue-Thu northwest winds gusting
to 30 mph. Where it is windiest, RH should remain above 25% so for
now we don`t have fire weather concerns next week.

Late on Tuesday there is decent model ensemble agreement that a weak
shortwave trough moves southeast across the northern Rockies then
across northeast Colorado. It looks a little weaker than it has
for previous model runs. Ensemble mean QPF is very light across
the mountains, and almost non-existent across the plains/Palmer
Divide. There aren`t any outliers in QPF either, it`s either very
light or nada. One thing it does have going that would argue for
more organized precip is a 110kt northerly jet that is positioned
right over central Colorado at 00Z Wednesday, which means the
left exit region is squarely over northeast Colorado for a 6 hour
period of time. If that jet does that, we`ll probably need to
increase PoPs and some QPF but that`s still > 3 days out and no
ensemble output is excited about the jet-induced lift yet. Cooler
air does look likely (>70%) on Tuesday with a 700 mb front moving
southeast across eastern Colorado and 700 mb temps dropping from
+1 degC to -7 degC, even as cold as -9 degC across the northeast
corner closer to the deeper cold air. Even if light snow
materializes in the mountains, it shouldn`t last much into
Wednesday morning before the short wave moves southeast of our
area and we get subsidence by midday Wednesday.

Wednesday into next weekend continues to look mild and dry as well
with a major warming trend possible for the end of the week. The
arctic air remains locked up over the U.S. Northern Plains and
Midwest, and does not look like it will make a run into Colorado at
all next week. Wednesday does look like it will get a reinforcing
shot of cold air aloft, with ensemble data at 700 mb quite confident
in temps dropping to -9 or -10 degC across our area, which would be
an average day for early February if it works out that way.  The
cold air later on Wednesday looks to get scoured out quickly and
temperatures warm back up into the low 60s across the plains and
urban corridor at the end of the week. The mountain valleys will
also be significantly above normal with highs in the upper 40s.

&&

.AVIATION /06Z TAFS through 06Z Monday/...
Issued at 1023 PM MST Sat Jan 31 2026

VFR conditions will prevail for all terminals through the TAF
period. Light drainage winds will prevail at KDEN and KAPA through
mid-morning Sunday, with westerly winds 08-15 kts remaining fairly
consistent for KBJC through the overnight hours. Daytime winds
Sunday will be light and quite variable, remaining below 10 kts
and generally favoring a clockwise diurnal rotation for KDEN
before returning to evening drainage patterns.

&&

.BOU WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
None.

&&

$$

DISCUSSION...Schlatter
AVIATION...BRQ

NWS BOU Office Area Forecast Discussion