textproduct: Grand Junction

KEY MESSAGES

- A broad ridge will remain over the West for much of the next week keeping a mainly dry and mild pattern in place.

- The exception will be during the mid-week period when snow will spread across the northern...central and portions of the southern mountains of Colorado. Rain or a mix at times is expected in the adjacent valleys.

-The higher elevations of the northern Colorado mountains have the highest probability of 6 or more inches of snow. The mild airmass may limit hazardous travel conditions to early Wednesday and Wednesday night.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH TUESDAY/

Issued at 1035 PM MST Sun Feb 22 2026

Temperatures will continue to trend upward as we stay mainly under the influence of a broad W.CONUS ridge. Highs will be near to 10 degrees above normal today and 5 to 15 above tomorrow as various amounts of high to mid level cloudiness drifts through. Dry conditions persist until Tuesday afternoon when the main AR plume starts to get pushed southward out of the N.Rockies. Large scale ascent and instability is limited initially so the main driver for squeezing out this moisture will be orographics. There for the main focus for light precipitation will be the high peaks of the northern Colorado mountains to get this next even started. There is a rather strong AR moving onshore Tuesday over NorCal/Oregon being driven inland by a shearing system off the PacNW coast. All this arrives for the mid-week period with more details below.

LONG TERM /TUESDAY NIGHT THROUGH SUNDAY/

Issued at 1035 PM MST Sun Feb 22 2026

West Coast ridging will generally keep precipitation to a minimum during the long term forecast period. An anomalous plume of moisture will advect into the region on Tuesday, bringing well above normal moisture for this time of the year. PWAT anomalies will peak at around 250-275% of normal overnight Tuesday into Wednesday. Despite the abundance of moisture, ridging aloft means synoptic forcing will mostly be absent. So, snowfall looks to primarily rely on orographic lift. Flow will be northwesterly, meaning the northern mountains will be favored for snowfall. A trough digging southward through the Great Plains midweek will pull a narrow band of vorticity through our CWA Wednesday night through Thursday night. The associated PVA will provide a bit of additional lift, so coverage of mountain snowfall will spread south to the San Juans, but at this point atmospheric moisture may be near normal again, so not much accumulating snow is expected. There has been good consistency on timing of this snow between model runs, but ensemble members are still struggling to find a consensus on totals. Ridging will keep daytime temperatures relatively warm, with highs expected to be 10 degrees above normal or greater through the entire long term forecast period.

AVIATION /12Z TAFS THROUGH 12Z TUESDAY/

Issued at 415 AM MST Mon Feb 23 2026

VFR conditions are forecast through the TAF period with light, terrain-driven winds and passing high clouds.

GJT WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

CO...None. UT...None.