Short Range Forecast Discussion - Updated for Thursday July 24, 2014 - Today and Friday continue to be showery and cooler, with plenty of thunderstorm activity, as weak upper-level weather disturbances and a plume of subtropical moisture continues circulating across Colorado out of the southwest US deserts, while high pressure ridging aloft shifts to the south and weakens overhead. Some good widespread showers are expected across the area both days. Saturday we expect warmer temperatures and a drying trend as high pressure ridging builds in overhead, with less thunderstorms and more sunshine. High pressure ridging overhead continues strong and centered over New Mexico on Sunday, and moisture increases from the southwest as another monsoon surge will have pushed into the Desert Southwest. On Monday and Tuesday we have another plume of subtropical moisture across the area, with an increased amount of showers and thunderstorms expected again. CM

Do you want to keep track of the US and southwest Canada snowpack? Check here >.

7 day to 2 week+ forecast (since 1998) - 30 July to 09 August, 2014 - The rest of next week and through early August we see strong high pressure ridging across the west (centered mainly near the 4-corners region ~ AZ/ NM/ UT/ CO), with a low to mid grade monsoon pattern across the southwest US (Arizona/ New Mexico), feeding scattered (or better) thunderstorm coverage each afternoon across northern New Mexico, otherwise mostly sunny weather is expected, with near average temperatures. We will also have to watch for the influence of tropical systems, which would increase shower and thunderstorm potential further. CM

Longer Range Outlook

As of now, July 2014, we are still on a path to see an El Nino Sea Surface Temperature pattern develop across the Equatorial Eastern Pacific (SSTs near to slightly below average). In fact, as of the last check, all of May and up until the last check of the charts (July), we see a trend to warmer Sea Surface Temperature Anomalies (or at least warmer than average Sea Surface Temperatures (SST's) holding overall) across the eastern Equatorial Pacific (good sign).



The larger time-scale SST pattern in place right now is still a cool phase PDO, or negative PDO, which stands for Pacific Decadal Oscillation. This is a more long term pattern (decades), and it has made any recent years El Nino SST patterns weaker.

To reiterate, we expect (and have seen) a trend toward positive SST Anomalies along the eastern Equatorial Pacific as of June 2, 2014 (SST's just west of South America along the equator are warming up, still). The likelihood of an El Nino pattern materializing by this summer and fall are becoming greater, now "likely". Forecasts from other agencies are calling for El Nino conditions to develop this summer and fall as well. This would favor the southwest US (including southern California and across to Taos Ski Valley, even Aspen, Colorado) for heavier rain and snow this fall and mainly winter (2014-2015), after a potentially wet monsoon summer across the southwest US including southern California through Colorado. Northwest US areas, and southwest Canada, along with northern Colorado through Wyoming and the northern Rocky Mountains, should see an active monsoon (thunderstorms and showers) this summer, followed by a drier than average, or near average snowfall winter (2014-2015). This is our outlook for now, and we will update as info becomes available. All of this information is generated in-house.

We will keep this outlook updated as more information becomes available. If you want to know when the snow is coming (and be able to set unlimited alerts for any resort), within 5 minutes or less of us (our our sources) entering the data into any of our forecasts, be sure to download the app.