Day 4 of Denver, CO (KDEN)

Last night, clouds at first and then southwesterly winds later on limited radiational cooling. It still dropped to 15F right at sunrise, lower than the past two days, due to clearer skies and drier low-level air late in the night. Plentiful sunshine has led to a high of 35F so far and still rising a little with a maximum wind of 17-18 kt this morning before tapering off a bit in the afternoon as expected. The High Plains seem to have a diurnal cycle in wind in which upslope easterly winds during daytime and downslope westerly winds at night are superposed onto the background synoptic-scale wind. Skies will be mostly clear tonight but stiff westerly winds will limit radiational cooling again, and a warmer air mass will lead to a significantly warmer low tonight. Some mid-level clouds will move in later in the day tomorrow and might hamper the daytime warming a little, but downsloping westerly flow and still some sunshine along with the warmer air mass will lead to significantly warmer temperatures than today. (Note that the low-level inversion still present on the HRRR in the afternoon is likely unrealistic, leading to the model showing a cold bias).

 

Source: PivotalWeather