DENVER — The growing number of wildfires has brought areas of smoke and haze to Colorado - courtesy of the large fire burning in southwestern Colorado, along with multiple other smaller fires burning in our state, including the Buffalo Mountain fire near Silverthorne.
Denver soared to 94 degrees Wednesday afternoon, but Grand Junction hit 101 degrees, setting a new record high for June 13th. The previous record was 100 degrees, set in 1918.
Skies will be partly cloudy overnight with lows around 60 degrees in the Denver area. A few thunderstorms will be ending across the eastern plains.
More moisture will return to Colorado by Thursday with a good chance for showers and thunderstorms in the mountains and a few storms possible for Denver and the eastern plains. It will be windy and hot with highs in the low to mid-90s in Denver and low 100s over southeastern Colorado.
There will be more clouds in the mountains and cooler temperatures with highs in the 70s to low 80s. Showers and thunderstorms will become widespread in the high country in the afternoon - a sign of some good things to come!
A shift in the weather pattern is coming for the weekend as winds aloft begin to blow from the south-southwest, bringing tropical moisture into Colorado. The remnants of Hurricane Bud, now off Baja - will be swept up in this flow and should bring much more moisture into the southwestern U.S. and the central Rockies.
The result of this weather shift will be a good chance for showers and thunderstorms each day from Saturday into next week. These slow moving storms will bring plenty of rainfall - just what we need to ease the dryness and fire danger across the region! The best moisture will be right where it is needed, across the parched and fire plagued southwest quarter of Colorado!