Forecast for the week of Aug 4th: hot, dry, windy at times with smoke from the nearby wildfires

08/04/25 8:40am: Welcome to hell's porch lol: looks like an extended stretch of hot, dry and windy conditions with smoke at times from the nearby wildfires. We have a late summer heat wave in the forecast for this week, with little rain through Friday. A cold front will move down the front-range on Fri evening into Sat, prior to this hot and dry.

Its going to be windy at times this afternoon and tomorrow afternoon especially across western CO on Tue, so there are some Red Flag Warnings in place for all of western CO, west of Vail Pass including Grand Junction and the western slope from 11am-9pm both today and tomorrow. Second image shows where the red flag warnings are.

For this afternoon windiest conditions from near the CO/WY border and west into Utah, southwesterly wind-gusts of 20-40 mph. But then for tomorrow models show the strongest wind right over western CO an extending east into the north-central mountains: west / southwest wind-gusts of 30-50mph tomorrow (no burning).

For Den/Bou and the front-range, also turning breezy this afternoon, after 2pm (10-20 mph gusts near the foothills). Then turning windier tomorrow: northwest wind-gusts of 15-30 mph after 12pm tomorrow.

For the front-range just the slightest chance for a storm this afternoon from Ft. Collins to Cheyenne, WY after 3pm. Turning very hot, with high temps near 100 degs for Tue-Thu this week.

The other story (unfortunately) will be the rounds of smoke being pushed across the state over the next couple of days (from the fires in CO, a bigger one west of Carbondale, also the fire on the UT/CO border and also the big Grand Canyon Fire). Smokiest conditions will be over west / southwest CO, but also moving towards the front-range and mountains at times (especially each afternoon).

Changes won't come until next weekend. Overall, August is looking hot and dry (with some rounds of moisture at times and some cold-front for the front-range).

First image loop shows forecast near-surface smoke over the next 48hrs (6am this morning through 6am Wed) from latest HRRR. Second image shows the where the Red Flag Warnings are for today and tomorrow. Image 3 shows forecast wind-gusts at 3pm today across the 4-corners region, image 4 is wind-gusts at 3pm tomorrow. Image 5 is the forecast slide from Den/Bou NWS office.