Boulder County will be taking the plunge into fall head-first Tuesday with a high of 56 degrees in Boulder and 55 degrees in Longmont — a drop of more than 20 degrees from today’s high temperature.
Tuesday’s forecast is also around 15 degrees below the average high of 71 degrees for the beginning of October in both cities, according to Bernie Meier, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Boulder.
Temperatures will not break any records, though, according to Jim Kalina, forecaster with Boulder NWS. The coolest high on record happened in 1959 when temperatures in Boulder didn’t rise above 36 degrees. Longmont set a record, as well, that year with a chilly high of 37 degrees.
Kalina said that these kind of temperature swings are par for the course when it comes to early fall.
“You know… in Colorado here we can get the troughs and the ridges (long areas of low and high pressure) and just some years you can get, you know, really cold air coming in,” he said.
Right now, Kalina added, a storm dumping snow on Montana is playing a role in the temperatures that Colorado will see during this week.
“We’re far enough north to get that variation where we get fronts, when they make it down this far,” he said.
Jeremy Papasso / Staff Photographer
Bento Castro, 6, lays on the ground after giving his brother Luca, 7, a good push on the swingset while enjoying the cooler temperatures on Monday at Dawson Park in Longmont. High temperatures are forecast to be about 20 degrees cooler on Tuesday than on Monday.
Matt Kelsch, a local meteorologist, also said that weather up north was having a chilling effect on the Front Range.
“Although we won’t get the snow, the polar air will slide down the high plains into eastern Colorado as that storm pulls away,” Kelsch said. “That’s the main reason for the colder weather.”
He added, though, that a second factor is contributing to tomorrow’s lower temperatures, saying that “considerable cloud cover east of the continental divide will reduce the warming from direct sunshine.”
In a post on his blog, Kelsch wrote that later Monday night folks might start to see temperatures dip down, “especially in southeastern Wyoming.”
He said that there’s a possibility those along the Front Range will see some low clouds and “areas of fog and drizzle late Monday night into Tuesday.”
“With clearing skies likely Tuesday night we are likely to see some local frosts in the normally colder spots such as the river alleys in northeastern Colorado,” he wrote. “Milder weather is likely to make a comeback Wednesday afternoon.”
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