03/18/26 8am: Morning. Its warm out there already (62 at my house in Westminster already). We are staring down the pipe at a historic heat-wave through Saturday. And really when I run models out, I see an overall hot and mostly dry pattern for the next 2 weeks with just a couple storm systems mixed in.

First loop shows the upper-level pattern over the next 15 days via 500mb height anomalies from latest GFS...you can see the very strong / hot area of high-pressure from now through Sat, a cool-down / weak cold-front on Sun, then back to very warm air for Mon-Wed next week. Then maybe a more substantial and colder storm system for the mountains by next Thu (03/26), but that is a ways out.

Very hot temps across the entire western / southwestern U.S. today through Saturday. For Den/Bou highs in the upper 80s by Thu, Fri and Sat (potentially near 90 by Fri and Sat). Prior to this heat-wave the earliest 90+ deg high temp for Denver was April 30th (that is the record). If we hit 90 on Saturday, that would be 40 days before the previous record and that is just mind boggling (a sure sign of this wild weather pattern we are in combined with impacts from climate change).

Even hotter for parts of AZ and CA. Southern AZ, near Phoenix may have high temps between 105-110 by Fri and Sat....that would be by far the earliest 105+ high temp they have ever had down there. Second image shows forecast high-temps for tomorrow (Thu) from NWS.

Anyway, looking for some relief: models do show a backdoor cold-front impacting the front-range on Sunday. It moves into the front-range (Den/Bou) during the morning hours and will produce more clouds, cooler temps and a chance for some light rain showers over Den/Bou mostly between 3pm Sun through 12am Mon (cooler with highs in the 60s on Sun). Second image shows forecast precip-type/rate at 12am Mon from GFS.

Not much impact to the mountains from the Sun cold-front (shallow air and further east).

Then warm again for Mon-Wed next week.

Then maybe a northwest flow clipper for the mountains late Wed into Thu next week (03/25-03/26) and that could bring several inches of snow to the mountains, but details are uncertain. Image 4 shows forecast precip-type / rate next Thu (03/26) at 6am from GFS.

Then back to warm and dry temps after that until the end of the month.

There are signals in the models that the west gets much more active near the beginning of April, we shall see.

That's all for now. Nothing we can do about the weather, so you might as well put on some shorts and go enjoy this stretch of summer like weather (lots of hiking, biking and climbing to be had 🙂 ).