Area Forecast Discussion
Issued by NWS Grand Junction, CO
Issued by NWS Grand Junction, CO
Versions:
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
450 FXUS65 KGJT 110506 AFDGJT Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Grand Junction CO 1106 PM MDT Wed Jul 10 2024 .KEY MESSAGES... - Temperatures will continue to climb into the weekend. Near record highs are expected Friday and Saturday. Heat Advisories remain in place for portions of eastern Utah and the Grand Valley. - Afternoon showers and thunderstorms will develop over higher terrain each day throughout the next 7 days with an increase in coverage expected early next week. - Temperatures remain elevated beyond the weekend, but some relief is expected from cloud cover and shower activity, as monsoonal moisture is forecast to return early next week. && .SHORT TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT/... Issued at 221 PM MDT Wed Jul 10 2024 High pressure over the Great Basin and Desert Southwest showed little indication of moving over the next 48 hours according to model consensus. On the eastern edge of the high, mid-level water vapor imagery indicated a stream of moisture moving southward over the Continental Divide, which has been the case over the past few days. Daytime heating has resulted in scattered showers/thunderstorms over the mountains along and west of the Divide. In the absence of dynamic lift, expect diurnal cooling will put storms to bed early this evening with skies clearing overnight. Given the quasi-stationary pattern, expect the same scenario to play out on Thursday with storms developing early in the afternoon, mainly over the mountains of the Divide, then dying early in the evening. Lows tonight and Thursday night will be near, or just a little above normal while highs rise a degree or two Thursday afternoon. Temperatures not quite at the level to warrant adding to the Heat Advisories in effect this Friday and Saturday. && .LONG TERM /FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... Issued at 221 PM MDT Wed Jul 10 2024 By Friday, the high pressure will be centered over Utah slowly tracking east to be in position over the Colorado Rockies Saturday. A dry airmass caught up in the flow around the high moves in over the northern areas to limit convection over the northern mountains Friday afternoon, but moisture from the Front Range moves into the San Juans to feed scattered showers and thunderstorms in the south with isolated convection to the north in the central Colorado mountains. The high tends to remain parked over the region through Monday with a tap to deeper moisture off the Gulf of California to move up into the Great Basin. From Monday onwards, the models diverge on solutions as to what happens to the high with some keeping it in place or even shifting east of the Divide while others push it back to the west/southwest with the shortwave dropping down over the Northern Plains. With the high wobbling over the mountains, models sneak in some of the moisture out of the Great Basin into eastern Utah and Western Colorado Sunday onward. Expect a slight uptick in showers and thunderstorms spreading to the northwest to about the I-70 corridor Sunday afternoon and becoming widely scattered across all the higher terrain Sunday evening. They continue to somehow increase the moisture across the region Monday and Tuesday though the high stays mostly in place with showers and thunderstorms becoming more widespread across the higher terrain by Tuesday. There is little confidence in the forecast beyond Sunday, so we`ll have to wait and see. Under the high pressure, temperatures continue to warm going into the weekend with Saturday being the warmest day five to ten degrees above normal for July. Models are consistent increasing the cloud cover with the influx of moisture to limit diurnal heating and cool the region with increased showers resulting in evaporative cooling. Temperatures fall a few degrees each day Sunday through Tuesday, but again, confidence is low beyond Sunday. && .AVIATION /06Z TAFS THROUGH 06Z FRIDAY/... Issued at 1103 PM MDT Wed Jul 10 2024 Isolated showers and storms are expected this afternoon in the same areas as yesterday. Gusty outflow winds upwards of 45 mph are possible for a brief time. Otherwise VFR conditions are expected through the taf period. && .GJT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... CO...Heat Advisory from 10 AM Friday to 9 PM MDT Saturday for COZ006. UT...Heat Advisory from 10 AM Friday to 9 PM MDT Saturday for UTZ024-027-029. && $$ SHORT TERM...NL LONG TERM...DB AVIATION...TGJT