Wednesday morning will be the last warm weather for the rest of the week across much of Wyoming, as Don Day and other meteorologists predict a sudden 40-degree drop in temperatures.
That’s a drastic change from the unseasonable high temperatures of up to 80 degrees across southeast Wyoming, said Day.
With the cold front that will begin in western Wyoming and move across most of the state will come some much-needed moisture by Wednesday afternoon.
Day even suggested taking some time off to enjoy the summer-like temperatures before the chilly weather begins.
“It is going to get colder and stay cool for several days, and it really starts in earnest on Thursday,” said Day. “Thursday and Friday will be significantly colder although the southern part of the state most likely won’t see the temperature drop until Friday night and Saturday.”
This cooling weather is bringing a typical spring to Wyoming and some much-needed precipitation, he said.
“It's another shot of cold weather,” Day said. “It's kind of like what came late last week.”
Fire Danger High
What moisture comes with the change in the weather will be welcome, meteorologists say.
"If everyone can do a rain dance, that would be great,” said Mathew Mclaughlin, general forecaster for the National Weather Service office in Cheyenne. “That'll be beneficial for our area. I have a red-flag warning out for pretty much all areas east of the I-25 corridor.”
Most of Converse, Niobrara, Platte, Laramie, and Goshen counties, and the western half of the Nebraska panhandle are all on high fire alert, Mclaughlin said.
He warns that with the minimal precipitation that Wyoming has seen on its dry grasslands so far, the fire danger is a real concern, especially in gusty winds.
“If a fire were to develop in this type of environment, it would spread pretty rapidly and containment could be difficult at times,” Mclaughlin said.
Mclaughlin said he is hopeful that the cold front will bring some moisture to Wyoming.
“In the spring, we typically see more rain showers and more precipitation chances,” Mclaughlin said. “This would be a more spring-like event that we usually expect this time of year.”
Overnight Freezing
Day said the good news about this colder weather on the way is that it doesn't look like overnight lows are going to drop too low.
“We are going to drop below freezing, but if we keep clouds and we get some precipitation, that should help us unlike the freeze last week,” Day said. “That one left my rhubarb looking very sad, and my bleeding hearts are in pretty bad shape.”
Day recommends covering plants that have bloomed.
“We're still really four weeks away from our usual last freeze,” Day said.
He also advises to insulate sprinklers that have already been turned on and not run them overnight or you may end up with what Day calls a “man-made ice storm.”
“Since it has been such a warm winter and spring, people have probably been jumping the gun a little bit in terms of turning their sprinklers on,” said Taylor Wittmann of the Riverton National Weather Service. “People should definitely be aware it's going to be a cold weand take the necessary precautions.”
Any Moisture Welcome
“We're just hoping, and got all of our fingers and toes crossed, that the next five to seven days could bring more needed precipitation to the state,” Day said. “The northern part of the state has done really well here lately with the last couple of spring storms, but a lot of the south and the east has been missed.”
The best chance for rain or snow will be across western Wyoming, Wittmann said.
Mclaughlin cautioned that while it looks busy on the radar, the moisture may never reach the ground.
“We can get sort of a microbursty environment which, if you think about it, it's like all this weight is dropping out of the atmosphere and going toward the ground and it kind of hits the ground and spreads out,” Mclaughlin said. “We can see some pretty gusty erratic winds with that as well.”
“It's not going to be really cold,” added Day. “It's just going be one of these longer stretches of cool weather we've seen this spring and this is good because for about five to six days there's going to be precipitation in pockets off and on.”
Jackie Dorothy can be reached at jackie@cowboystatedaily.com.
