From Fire to Snow: Western Colorado’s Extreme Weekend Forecast

Friday’s weather is basically Western Colorado, showing that it has attitude, and you need to deal with it.

Fire danger. Wind. Then, mountain snow by Monday morning because, Colorado.

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The Part Where Everything Tries to Catch Fire

The Grand Valley is heading into another round of hot, dry wind that blows, literally.

Red Flag Warnings are already up on Friday, with more likely coming for Saturday, especially south of the Colorado River.

And if you’ve spent enough time around Grand Junction, Fruita, or the lower end of Montrose County, you know this is the season where anything that can start a fire will.

Saturday looks worse. Gusts around 30 to 40 mph. The kind that turns I-70 into a steering-wheel workout and tumbleweeds start running races.

Then The Mountains Pull a Fast One

By Sunday afternoon, the whole setup flips.

A trough dropping into the Great Basin drags colder air into northwest Colorado and northeast Utah, and suddenly the conversation changes from fire weather to snow on the passes Monday morning.

Read More: Watering Your Lawn Won’t “Save” Colorado’s Water From California

Not a massive spring blizzard or anything dramatic. Just enough to remind people that living near the Rockies means winter never fully leaves. It just goes quiet for a while.

The really annoying part might be the freeze potential on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings.

After a week of near-normal warmth, parts of western Colorado could dip cold enough to mess with early gardens, fruit trees, and anybody who got a little too confident at the garden center last weekend.