Fraser, CO 80482 Weather

Key messages

- Areas of fog again tonight across northeast and eastern Colorado.

- Mild and mostly dry through Saturday.

- Unsettled weather returns late Sunday and Monday.Mountain snow is likely (>70% chance) above 8500ft during thistime. High uncertainty remains for the foothills and plains.

.DISCUSSION /Through Friday/: Issued at 111 PM MDT Fri Oct 30 2026

Water vapor satellite imagery showsa shortwave trough over southern California bringing widespread clouds and scattered rain showers to the Desert Southwest. Ahead of this, there is a dry slot which will result in mostly clear skies for northeast Colorado through this evening. High clouds then increase late tonight and persist through Saturday morning. At the surface, the pattern changes very little as a surface trough remains near the base of the foothills, which will help keep low level moisture in place over northeast Colorado. This will lead to another round of fog late tonight and Saturday morning. The mid and high clouds associated with the shortwave trough tracking east-northeast across the intermountain west will shift east of the area midday Saturday. Mostly sunny skies are expected during the afternoon, helping to push temperatures into the upper 50s to mid 60s across northeast Colorado.

Southwest flow aloft will increase during the day Sunday as two systems off to the west take aim at the region. The first one system, a shortwave trough moves across southern California and tracks east-northeast Sunday and Monday. This system will run ahead of the second system on Sunday, carrying subtropical moisture with it and, like many of the recent systems, bring moderate to heavy rain to the Desert Southwest and Four Corners Region. For north central and northeast Colorado, this has resulted in scattered showers over the mountains and just cloudy skies for northeast Colorado. The second system tracks eastward across Oregon and northern California Sunday and then moves across Colorado Monday. The best chance for rain and mountain snow will come late Sunday night and Monday as the main trough moves overhead. The snow level starts off high, above 11,000 feet but quickly lowers to 8,500 to 9,000 feet by Monday morning. Snow is expected to continue into Monday night when flow aloft turns north-northwesterly, a somewhat favorable direction for orographic lift across the north central mountains. Temperatures will be cool Monday due to the overhead trough and cloud cover. Northerly flow behind the trough Tuesday will keep temperatures cool with highs in the 50s with dry conditions.A few earlier model runs combined these two systems over the Central Rockies producing a strong storm system, but this scenario now looks very unlikely.

The broad troughiness shifts east of the area sometime late Tuesday/early Wednesday with ridging replacingit, most likely for Wednesday. We expect to see a bump up in temperatures with dry conditions. The ridging is expected to progress east of the area on Thursday. What replaces it is still unclear. The next upper level trough moves over the western states onThursday. Still very little model agreement on the placement, strength, and track of the upper level trough for Thursday and Friday. For the forecast, temperatures should be near normal. We will have some low PoPs in the mountains and keep the plains dry for now.

.AVIATION /00Z TAFS through 00Z Sunday/: Issued at 551 PM MDT Fri Oct 30 2026

Some small adjustments have been made for potential impact timing at all TAF sites with this TAF package. Fog is still anticipated to develop overnight tonight and stick around through late Saturday morning. In addition to KDEN/KBJC's previously advertised expected impacts, KAPA now has increased chances of potential impacts as well, with a TEMPO now included in their TAF beginning at 13Z. Additionally, guidance has started to move up the arrival time of low stratus to as early as 5Z tonight at KDEN, so a TEMPO has been included to account for this change. Similar to last night, a cyclone is expected to bring light and variable winds to the TAF sites, and fog is likely to be within the vicinity of KDEN/KBJC sometime between 9Z-10Z, with prevailing LIFR conditions anticipated by 12Z. There are still some uncertainties on if there is an earlier development at KDEN, as latest hi-res guidance is hinting at this potential, but we would like to see what the 0Z model trends give us before making any further adjustments. KAPA is, once again, the wildcard, but it is starting to look like NNW winds have a good chance of pulling the fog further south by early Saturday morning that they could see a few hours of LIFR conditions between 13Z-16Z. Conditions should start to improve across all the TAF sites late Saturday morning, between 16Z-18Z, with VFR conditions likely to return by 20Z.

Light northerly winds are expected by late Saturday morning, becoming NE for the afternoon, and turning to the south for the overnight hours.

Watches, warnings and advisories

None.