\n— LOW flood threat for Arkansas River from Pueblo through John Martin Reservoir
\n— LOW flood threat for Palmer Ridge and parts of Northeast Plains
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The “spring of the cut-off lows” continues across the Southwest U.S. The water vapor imagery shows yet another cut-off low<\/span> currently positioned off the California coast. This low pressure system is being supported by not one, but too different subtropical jets. The maximum wind speeds in both jets, about 35,000 feet off the ground is more than 100mph. For Colorado, this implies active weather not only today, but all the way through Sunday. Hikers and campers should closely monitor weather conditions and National Weather Service forecasts this weekend.<\/p>\n Closer to home, a strong disturbance (black dashed line) is passing overhead this morning, and is currently about two-thirds of the way across the state on its way northeastward. This disturbance is supporting general light rain in the northeast, but is quickly exiting the state. In its wake is a sharp line of clearing, meaning that sunshine will break out for most everyone shortly after noon today. However, with that sunshine will come a quick heating of the ground, leading to instability as the saturated ground loses water vapor to the atmosphere through evaporation. Isolated<\/span> to scattered<\/span> thunderstorm activity will break out over mostly the northern half of the state by early afternoon.<\/p>\n While most thunderstorms will be rather modest, producing light to moderate rainfall, the Northeast Plains will play host to stronger storms by early afternoon. Some of these stronger storms will be capable of producing very heavy rainfall as they will be working with a large amount of moisture. Precipitable water<\/span> values are expected to stay in the 0.7-0.9 inch range, but cloud warm layer depths (the portion of a cloud that is above 32F) will be very deep. The forecasted warm layer depth for 3pm is shown below. This results in very efficient rainfall formation, and will support isolated<\/span> rain rates up to 1.7 inches per hour. Given the saturated soil conditions, this warrants a Low flood threat for parts of the Northeast Plains. Additionally, some storms will be capable of producing large hail up to 1.75 inches.<\/p>\n![\"watervapor_20150522\"](\"https:\/\/archive-coftb.dewberryanalytics.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/watervapor_20150522.png\")
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