textproduct: Pueblo

KEY MESSAGES

- Critical fire weather conditions will continue across the Pikes Peak region and portions of the I-25 corridor through 5 PM today

- Relatively quiet weather expected Wednesday, with increasing mountain showers later in the day.

- Confidence increasing on a potentially impactful winter storm for much of southern CO Thursday and Friday, with moderate to possibly heavy snow possible for the southeast mountains and adjacent plains.

SHORT TERM /THROUGH WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 136 PM MST Tue Jan 6 2026

Critical fire weather conditions have spread across portions of the lower eastern slopes of the southeast mountains and adjacent I-25 corridor this afternoon and are progged to continue through 5 PM until winds begin to decrease. Current Red Flag Warnings still look on target.

Winds decrease overnight with the stronger gusts pulling back up into the higher elevations overnight. This will allow for another cool night for the mountain valleys and more of the adjacent plains where winds are expected to be lighter. Stuck close to the National Blend of Models for overnight lows, though did cool off some of our typical cold valley locations around 5 degrees or so.

We are still in between systems for Wednesday as the first impulse approaches from the southwest. Current set of runs are warm and less windy, though the high country will see gusty winds in the afternoon as southwesterly flow increases ahead of the approaching wave. Temperatures across the plains will warm into the lower to mid 60s again, with 40s and 50s for the valleys and 20s and 30s for the higher mountains. Humidity values will be critically low again Wednesday afternoon (below 15 percent) but winds are progged to shift around from a lighter southeast to southerly component. Some spotty elevated fire weather conditions will be possible over a very limited area near the mountains, with eastern Huerfano and eastern Fremont Counties seeing the strongest winds, mainly in the morning. Once again, area looks to limited in coverage and duration for fire weather highlights, but this will need to be monitored closely as humidity values are expected to be critical once again. -KT

LONG TERM /WEDNESDAY NIGHT THROUGH MONDAY/

Issued at 222 AM MST Tue Jan 6 2026

Wednesday Night - Monday: For the rest of the long term period, active weather is expected for the start, with quiet weather quickly returning thereafter. Heading into the later part of the week, active weather returns as troughing develops and pushes over the region Thursday - Saturday. Confidence in this pattern change is high (70 percent) given strong and continued agreement between ensemble model guidance, along with confidence increasing in timing as guidance has started to come into better alignment with each other. Current thinking is that the initial troughing will start pushing over Thursday, with the core of the system passing over through Thursday Night and Friday, and then exiting by early Saturday. This will bring increasing precipitation chances Thursday, especially along the mountains, with the most widespread and heavier precipitation Thursday Night and Friday. There is the potential for this storm system to bring impactful wind driven snow to the area, particularly on Friday for the southeast mountains and adjacent plains. The details on snow amounts and impacts will depend heavily on the track and strength of the storm system. With the continued good run-to-run consistency of the 12z runs, confidence has increased in the potential for some moderate to heavy wind driven snow Thursday night and Friday. Probabilities of 4 inches or more of snow have increased to 50 to 80 percent across the southeast mountains and adjacent plains, with the northeast upslope flow regions of the Wets, Sangres, Pikes Peak and the Palmer and Raton Mesa regions seeing the higher probabilities. Probabilities of 8 inches or more of snow have increased to up to 40 percent for a more limited portion of these terrain features, but this is an increase from earlier runs, and deterministic models suggest more snow is possible. Will let the evening set of model runs come in before honing down snowfall amounts, but suspect some winter weather highlights will be needed with the next package.

Quiet weather returns Sunday and Monday, as ridging returns and dry conditions are expected. After a significant cool down for Thu and Friday, more seasonal temperatures will return for the weekend into early next week.

AVIATION /18Z TAFS THROUGH 18Z WEDNESDAY/

Issued at 1023 AM MST Tue Jan 6 2026

VFR conditions anticipated across much of the forecast area over the next 24 hrs, including the three main TAF sites of KCOS, KPUB and KALS. Gusty W-NW winds up to 35-40 kts will be probable at times in those normal gap flow areas until 22z-24z, mainly along and west of I-25, affecting KPUB but low confidence at KCOS.

PUB WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

Red Flag Warning until 5 PM MST this afternoon for COZ221-222- 226>229.