LIVE- Thunderstorms strengthening over the Pikes Peak Region and Palmer Divide.

Added: 2026-05-20

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[00:03:37]Hey, the crew. Good afternoon. It is Sunday. We are sitting here on May 17th.

[00:03:41]This is Peaks to Plains weather. I am chief meteorologist Matt Meister.

[00:03:45]Whether you are joining us on Roku, whether you are in the Peaks to Plains weather app, whether you are on the website, whether you are on YouTube, uh whether you are on social media, thanks for joining us here. If you are on social media, I would ask if you don't mind uh kind of sharing this post here and get it into the algorithm, we would appreciate it. Let's jump right into what's happening out there this afternoon. If you look to the north from the south end of Colorado Springs on the side of Cheyenne Mountain Broadmore's cloud camp up to the north, you can see some thunderstorms and it looks a little nasty. Here is what the clouds have done early this afternoon from visible satellite here. You can see that there's been some enhancement in lift in the atmosphere uh over the last several hours moving from the mountains onto the plains. There is a wave back here that is going to continue to move eastward over the next several hours. That is one of the things that is driving the thunderstorm activity this afternoon. We have seen those hit the monument area.

[00:04:46]So far, we've had some small hail. We've had some gusty wind and you see the splashback there from the cars that are driving north on the interstate. We're kind of looking up to the north there over the Palmer Divide and see that splashback and we've had some decent rain as well. The temperature in Monument has dropped to 50° here this afternoon. Castle Rock has had some thunderstorms move overhead as well and it is a slow go on the interstate. So, here's Tamco live radar and we are watching thunderstorms this afternoon across the Palmer Divide and up across the Pikes Peak region as well. You see a strong one moving out of the north side of Colorado Springs right now. We'll put the storm tracks on here and we do have a couple of cells that have been strengthening over the last 20 minutes.

[00:05:32]One of the strongest is off to the north of Kya right now. That one is starting to show signs of some rotation in the mid levels of the atmosphere and that shows us that it is starting to rotate.

[00:05:44]Now, one of the things we're going to watch for here over the next couple of hours is for, you know, this cluster of cells right now, one or two of these things to jump out and become the dominant cell. If we can get one of those, that will be a storm that we'll watch, especially as they move to the northeast away from our area of maybe producing some hail up around 2 in in diameter. That will likely be across northeastern Colorado. It's something that we'll keep an eye on, though. A little bit farther to the south, you can see the cell just to the south of Kya. I just queried that here. We've got DBZ or radar intensity in these cells between 45 and 55 DBZ. That's getting up to the size that can produce certainly some hail maybe around a/ inch or so in diameter. We've also seen some wind gusts around 40 miles hour with these storms. We have the storm that has just moved across the interstate. that's currently moving across the Glenn Eagle neighborhood toward High Forest Ranch toward Highway 83 up toward Black Forest. We've got one coming out of the northeast side of Colorado Springs that has moved across the Briergate area. I got reports earlier of some small hail with that and it's moving into Cordera into Wolf Ranch here and that one is also moving uh toward Black Forest. If I grab that Cordera cell and the heaviest core with it, it's moving off to the northeast. And storms right now have been moving between about 15 and 20 mph.

[00:07:14]And so that'll take it across Black Forest here over the next 20 minutes or so. Uh staying to the north of Highway 24. That cell probably stays to the north of Meridian Ranch in the Falcon area as well. And if I grab the cell coming out of the Glen Eagle neighborhood and we widen the view with that and put uh some of the locations on that for you would hit High Forest Ranch at about 220. So we'll keep an eye on both of those cells coming out of the north side of the Colorado Springs area here. And if I widen the view back out on the radar, you can see that those there is a cell coming over Highway 24 on the east side of Pikes Peak and a couple of cells that are moving on the west side of Pikes Peak as well. This is a loop over the last two hours and I'll slow that down a little bit for you.

[00:08:03]Just hearing some uh thunder uh at the Peaks to Plains weather studios right now. I'll also take those storm tracks off here for you and you can just watch what the cells have been doing. Notice that as they have been hitting the Palmer Divide and some of the low-level moisture behind the cold front that came through this morning, they get stronger than when they're over the mountain areas. There's just not as much low-level moisture below the cloud bases over the mountains as there is for the storms to ingest once they get east of the Rockies. And you can see the radar here off to the south of the storms kind of feeding into the storms. That's the inflow that those storms are moving. And we could actually see some features that indicate some of the inflow when we were looking from the Cheyenne Mountain camera a little bit earlier. The other thing to watch here as you see over the last couple of hours, watch how these cells are sort of pulsing. They go up and then the updrafts collapse a little bit. So you'll see these pockets of almost purple colors that we have in there and then they go down. This is a multisellular cluster right now that is sort of having a hard time kind of getting organized with a dominant cell uh becoming kind of something to watch.

[00:09:22]And we need one of these cells to become the dominant one if we are going to worry about hail around or up over an inch in diameter. Um hold on. I'm texting Mary here. She's working on jumping. getting on.

[00:09:39]One of the things we like doing, you know, Mary and I like when the weather is like this, so uh you know, we kind of get excited about it and it's cool to be able to walk you through it as well. So, we're getting heavy rain in western Albert County right now around Kya and you see the pulsating nature of these cells that continues here. And from Colorado Springs, if you are looking off to the north, let me stop this loop here. Uh what you're seeing is the uh cool air with these cells uh that is starting to kind of rush away out ahead of these cells. We get what we call a cold pool underneath where the rain is.

[00:10:19]And if I show you that Cheyenne Mountain shot again here, uh looking off to the north, you can see underneath those clouds the leading edge of that cold pool that is moving off to the east.

[00:10:34]Okay, so let's bring Mary in here and we'll get her take. She's been getting a couple of reports. Uh she is popping here uh in with us uh on Peaks the Plains weather uh this afternoon. Here she is. Meteorologist uh Mary Matthews.

[00:10:48]Mary, how are you this afternoon?

[00:10:50]>> I'm doing great. I'm glad I made it. Can you hear me? Okay, >> I can. We can hear you. Great. It's working good. The tech is working good.

[00:10:57]We need to let everybody know we are doing things here that is like pushing the boundaries of some tech stuff and every time we do it or if we don't do it for a while like we have to kind of get back in the saddle, right?

[00:11:12]>> That's right. You're exactly right. I have to say though, I mean, I think the model picked up on this really well and what you were just saying about uh, you know, this is a linear fashion here pushing southwest and northeast, but what you were just saying there about multisellular often times when you have all that shared energy, that can be a blessing in disguise because you really don't get one single cell that gets all of the energy and hence you don't get as much larger hail. And we weren't expecting super large hail in our area today, uh, but you know, some hail out there. I' I've seen some reports around a quarter of an inch around Black Forest, >> which makes sense given the the those storms moving through, but like you said, I mean, if all of this energy was in one cell, you know, the hail would probably be at least a half inch bigger and we might be flirting with something that was maybe around an inch. So, I agree with you that it is a saving grace um to kind of see how the evolution of this has gone this afternoon.

[00:12:09]>> I know. I I I agree. I'm going to keep an eye on um our questions from our Facebook live if you want to keep going for just a minute and let me get a little bit reset here.

[00:12:17]>> Sure. Okay. Yeah, I'll keep cranking away on some stuff here and we will talk about what is going to happen as we move into the rest of the afternoon because this wave coming off the hills that I was talking about earlier is going to move these cells over the next several hours into an environment that is more favorable for not only stronger wind gusts than we have seen here locally, but also for some larger hail as well.

[00:12:45]So, if I widen out the view here, I've got the um severe weather outlook on here. And Mary and I use uh a scale that's kind of a one to five scale and then we put some words with it that hopefully make sense. And so, this is something that we'll do every day here as we move through thunderstorm season.

[00:13:03]So, we've got the Pikes Peak region and Palmer Divide kind of on the lower end of the scale and the possibility for severe weather. You can see that those cells are just getting east right now into the area where I think severe weather becomes more likely. So over the hour or so, you know, we may see one of these cores that we were talking about that, you know, are going up and then losing some energy to other cells uh become more likely to become something worth watching and maybe something that ends up producing some severe hail. Now, when we say severe hail, what on earth are we talking about? We're early in the thunderstorm season here. So, I think this is a good thing to kind of revisit because, you know, there are specific criteria that we use and the weather service uses when we are talking about severe weather. And so, here's what we mean. It has to be hail that's an inch in diameter or greater. Now, this just isn't something that we picked up willy-nilly. This is from observation over time. When I first started doing weather in Colorado Springs in the early 2000s, it was threequarters of an inch in di diameter hail that we used for the issuing of severe thunderstorms and what we would consider severe hail. But we monitored over the years that that 3/4 in hail wasn't doing the amount of damage that 1in diameter hail was doing.

[00:14:31]from all the reports that come in, hey, what happened to the side of your house to your siding to your car and that sort of thing. And thankfully, because we live in Hail Alley in Colorado, we actually get less severe thunderstorm warnings now because we have that 1 in diameter for the criteria. The other thing that can kick off a severe thunderstorm warning is damaging wind gusts of 58 mph. Now, if you're like, what kind of rando number is 58 mph?

[00:14:59]Well, it's 50 knots. Now, that's another way you can measure wind, and it goes back to when the weather bureau back in the days was starting to issue warnings and kind of has a marine tiein. Um, but 50 knots converts to 58 miles hour. And so, that's where that comes from. And then anytime a thunderstorm uh has a confirmed funnel cloud with it or is producing a tornado, we uh automatically consider that a severe thunderstorm as well. So when you get a push alert from the peaks to plains weather app or uh if you get something on your phone from the weather service that they have issued a severe thunderstorm warning that's the criteria that is being used. Again I think important to note that here uh as we move through this afternoon and the early part of severe weather season. So over the next couple of hours watch what happens here. So I have that one two three on our um severe weather outlook.

[00:15:54]The storms are going to move into an environment that has more water in it.

[00:15:58]And you see due points in the 40s out across far eastern Colorado. And you also see a northeast wind out there.

[00:16:05]These storms will move into an environment that has a little bit more wind shear. And so they'll continue to grow here. So watch what happens from where we are right now with Skycast. And like Mary said, it did a great job this morning of not just on the timing of things, but on where the storms are as well. So that gives us confidence that it has a good kind of handle on the atmosphere. And so over the next couple of hours here between now and 3:00, you see that Skycast is kind of growing the coverage and the intensity of these cells and then really latches on to some stronger activity here as everything moves past I7 off to the northeast through the back part of the afternoon into the early part of the evening. And that's what I was talking about this morning. It's what Mary was talking about yesterday. And it's a similar evolution actually to what we ended up seeing across the area on Saturday when we did have a large uh hail report across the eastern part of the um Palmer Divide. And I'll show you that here.

[00:17:09]These I have uh up over the last uh 24 hours the storm reports because we had a report of 1 and 3/4 in hail that was around uh Hugo. And if I show you that from yesterday, um you can see that here. Uh it was 1.8 inch in diameter.

[00:17:29]But then as those storms moved off to the northeast and we had, you know, them kind of go what we call upscale approaching Kansas, we had wind gusts that were over 70 mph in some cases. And we had a big dust storm that was rolling east across I7 for travelers in east central Colorado. And we had some reports of some wind damage as well. You can see one very near the Colorado Kansas state line uh that a a downed dying tree came down. That's important.

[00:18:00]A living healthy tree takes stronger wind gusts to bring down than a dying tree. So over the next several hours here as those storms roll off to the east, like I said, we'll be more likely to get more severe weather reports. Uh it'll be kind of a similar evolution to what we had yesterday. So, we're kind of on the low end of things here in the Pikes Peak region, western edges of the Palmer Divide, but uh Mary and I did think there was a little bit higher hail risk today um locally compared to what we had yesterday. So, we just wanted to hop on here and uh let you guys know about that. All right. Um let's see.

[00:18:37]We've got uh Denita says uh flying trampoline when the winds are strong. Yeah, we have a flying trampoline warning where Mary wants to come back in. Mary is raising her hand. Mary, this is not school. You don't need to do that. You just, you know, give me a give me a knock and I'll I'll get you back on.

[00:18:57]>> Got a question. No, I'm just kidding.

[00:18:59]Hey, I want I know, right? Uh excuse me.

[00:19:03]Um I want to know where uh Denita is because if you notice, we got a nice little outflow boundary now pushing east of Highway 24.

[00:19:12]And >> oh here, let me come back to that.

[00:19:14]>> I picked up on a good gust there. That would be just past Vanny Lewis Ranch. If you put it in motion. Oh, you can see it showing up there.

[00:19:23]>> You sure can.

[00:19:25]>> Yep.

[00:19:26]>> So, on that note, I know we might be getting a little bit of feedback from my mic.

[00:19:31]So, >> uh, we're actually we're good. We're not getting anything from you.

[00:19:35]>> Okay. Just >> we're clean as can be. Clean as a whistle, Mary.

[00:19:40]But I if that really picks up um not only I mean I think the due points are high enough east of there still we could see some new storm development from that outflow boundary but that is going to send some trampolines flying. Doesn't look like it's super fast right now but you can see the outflow starting to form there. You want to you could point it out Matt? I don't have you've got right now >> right there. So that's that little thin line that Mary's talking about and you can see it come away from the storm uh here. So, I'll show that to you and then I'll take it off. So, right at the edge of right where I have that cold front drawn and you can see this little thin green line move over Falcon away from the storm. That's the outflow boundary that Mary is talking about. And Mary, what we can do is we can put this on now and then we'll go to the velocity and we'll see if velocity is picking that up.

[00:20:31]>> So, how >> and you can see it right there. Yeah.

[00:20:34]>> Yeah. And so if we loop that, you should see it in the velocity uh image as well.

[00:20:40]So what you're seeing is from the PBLO radar uh which is off to the northeast of PBLO. That green that you see there running into the red uh the green is wind that's moving toward the radar and that's the strong wind gust that Mary's talking about. So this is the cool descending air from the storms that's fanning out out in front of it.

[00:21:01]>> You know, uh we just got a question. I believe it was on your Facebook page, uh, which is a great question. Are all the storms going to stay north of Highway 24 today? This is from Cameron.

[00:21:11]Um, and you and I talked about this yesterday that the outflow boundaries are off in the wild card. Even though that cold front is still to our north and it looks like it's going to slow down just a bit. Once those outflow boundaries start to uh come away from the storm, they kind of are like a little pseudo coldfront, if you will.

[00:21:29]They're kind of a focal point for new storm development. So, if that happens, you can certainly get storms south of Highway 24. And I think we will, and I think we're already probably going to see that in the next few hours. I think we were expecting that today. But, you know, it's a good question because the general orientation of the storms is that south southwest to northeast trend >> uh due to how our system is set up.

[00:21:50]>> Yeah, great question. Uh good eye on that, Mary, and thanks for for using that opportunity to point that out.

[00:21:56]Right. Like that was fantastic. I think one of the other things we can watch here, especially with this outflow boundary, is this camera um from cloud camp, right? Because if we see something right along the edge of that cool air, I mean, we're looking right up toward that thing across Colorado Springs. Um we'll watch these clouds off onto the right hand side here because if we see some of those start to vertically grow, uh we know that that outflow boundary is is starting to do some lifting there. So, um great point >> that you made. There's another another report uh we just got from Vicki. Thank you, Vicki. County Line Road west of I25.

[00:22:34]Storm has moved east. There was P-size hail for a little bit. Uh wonderful rain and thunder, she said. Then currently blue skies to the west. That was about 3 minutes ago. And then Jennifer said, "Out in Meridian Ranch, just had a few bursts of wind. The sky was super dark and now not as much." And I think Jennifer, thank you for that. I think that'll be the general trend today is it may feel intense while it's here, but we do have to watch those outflow boundaries because I had damage in my house on Friday. Roof damage from an outflow boundary >> on really a day that wasn't that impressive, right? Like >> it wasn't it wasn't. But this is the land of I mean outflow boundaries happen all over the US and all over the globe, but >> right >> I I am amazed at how they collide out here. How they operate. I mean there's so much dust to pick up there. you can see them so well. I mean, this is the land of a lot of pulsing up with these storms and then collapsing and it's just it's fascinating to watch. But it was pretty intense and uh I had to, you know, tie down my grill. I'm always scared my grill is going to walk off the porch and something major is going to happen with that. But >> because it's got wheels or what?

[00:23:40]>> Yeah. Well, and then, you know, we we have an elevated deck and then we get all this wind coming through.

[00:23:45]>> Oh, that makes sense. and it pushes it over towards the stairs and then before you know it it's riding down the stairs and that's scary with propane and >> right >> all the things you know >> Mary you got to lock that thing down I'm telling you what >> we have it locked down now yeah we got it back >> got to do it right >> we got it down for sure but it looks like uh and it looks like now north of Shupe Road or north of Highway 24 a nice little a little double small hail core there just south of 86.

[00:24:14]>> Yeah, absolutely. And these things still like I mean this one wasn't there 10 minutes ago. That's how quick they are going up and collapsing. Um one of the things that that I like to look at is a cross-section of these things to kind of see how high they are. And >> Oh, you know I love some cross-sections.

[00:24:33]>> Oh, you got to get cross-sections are the I mean it's what makes the meteorological world go round.

[00:24:38]>> That's right.

[00:24:39]>> And you can see like these are not that not that tall.

[00:24:43]>> Not super impressive. Yeah. You know what's interesting though? If you look at the back edge uh of that, let me I'll use an arrow here to show everybody what I'm talking about. Right here, see how that's higher than these older cores?

[00:24:59]That's kind of how multis-ell storms work. Like a new updraft will go up and then kind of mature and die out. That's what's happening off to the right here.

[00:25:09]Uh and that's that kind of go up and collapse that we've been talking about.

[00:25:13]um and watching here uh as we you know put things into motion. So on Q I'll do that over the last couple of hours and you can see uh if you are just joining us how these things go up and then die out.

[00:25:28]>> Yeah, that was a great that was a great explainer and it's certainly working into a more favorable environment. That area has had more sunshine today.

[00:25:34]>> Mhm. And uh it looks like down to our south that little outflow boundary is got a nice little cell that's riding along the southern southwestern side of that outflow boundary near the Broadmore.

[00:25:48]It's not really much.

[00:25:49]>> Just a little shower.

[00:25:51]>> Well, and that that atmosphere has been turned over a couple times already, right? Like it doesn't have the oomph that that thing out on the front end does.

[00:26:00]>> And I don't know what you think about this, but this will be interesting to watch.

[00:26:05]if if this cell here can kind of become a dominant one. I mean, a it's right on the crest of the Palmer divide. It's got inflow coming into it. It's the leading storm and it's moving into an environment that's more favorable. So, maybe that's one to watch here over the next half hour or so.

[00:26:27]>> Yeah, you know, the HR I was just looking at. It's one of our high resolution models. it re refreshes quite a bit. Actually, the latest run shows that cell blowing up quite a bit as it gets to line in terms of strong winds kind of boowing out. Um, okay. So, it will be interesting to watch because it may >> it may become more outflow dominant after it kind of pulses up and you get all that energy kind of slamming into areas east of the Palmer Divide. So, that'll be interesting to watch. Um, any other questions that you have for Matt and I, just let us know. We're live on Facebook right now. Um he is under Matt Meister. I'm under Mary Matthews taking your questions. Of course, we expected the strong to severe storms to be the highest out across the eastern plains today. Uh we did not expect any widespread severe weather here in the Pikes Peak region necessarily, but we couldn't rule out one or two storms getting a bit more robust. But I was at the Air Force Academy this morning watching my son play flag football.

[00:27:25]>> And you're right, we did have a bit of an overworked atmosphere kind of on the west side down to the south towards Colorado Springs. So that may kind of keep things from getting too strong.

[00:27:35]>> I was walking out of church at uh Wes was walking from one part of church to the other um right before 11:00 and it was sprinkling already uh this this morning. So, you know, if you're doing that, you are taking some of the energy versus if you cooked things up for another hour or two, right?

[00:27:53]>> I know. If we could have had more sunshine this morning for sure, uh that would have been great. Um have you I have not seen the I think you just maybe you just showed this the graph for this afternoon. I mean, obviously, can we see that again?

[00:28:09]>> We can go back to it um if you want for sure and show that evolution. But before we do that, you know, I was going to say like this is the exact same area that had a storm yesterday around Simla and then kind of rolled toward Lyman.

[00:28:22]Remember when you and I were texting?

[00:28:24]This is right where as as basically this same sort of cell yesterday approached Lyman was when we got the first severe thunderstorm warning. And that's because of the terrain, right? The Palmer Divide is a magical place. So, you push that southeast wind uh into that hill between the springs in Denver and the side of Pikes Peak and boom, >> thunderstorms.

[00:28:45]>> I know. You always get your mid-level rotation right there, too. Even if it doesn't really >> materialize all the way down to the surface, just like that friction induced spin. So, yeah, it's really interesting.

[00:28:55]Um, you know, I I uh I I am really curious about kind of how that's going to evolve through the day because I'm a little bit late catching up here getting back from football. Um, has that changed much?

[00:29:10]>> No, I mean this is kind of how it was looking earlier. The timing uh is about right. Um, and this is storm relative velocity here. Um, >> and so you can you can see actually that kind of right in here it's starting to want to show some mid-level rotation that you talked about. And then here's that outflow boundary >> back to the south.

[00:29:35]>> Um, yeah. So, I agree it's it's in the right spot. Like it'll be interesting to watch that. So, here's the um the the next few hours uh from the graph and then we can put the the her on here as well. Um, I don't It's funny you call it H triple R. I've always called it the her.

[00:29:55]>> Wait. Well, I I think I think I I call it the her, too. But I think because we're on with viewers.

[00:30:01]>> Oh, >> I don't want to be like more formal. And they're like, are they talking about a a girl, a person?

[00:30:08]>> It's like an old car, right? Like guys call it her. Uh, anyways, Mary and I can get sidetracked pretty easy. Um, okay. You guys, you guys will learn that uh when the two of us are doing stuff together. Um, I mean, it has the idea here, right? Like this is 3:00, so it's going to be a little bit slow um on the timing. Um, and I think it's going to >> It's got the It's similar. It's similar.

[00:30:36]Yeah.

[00:30:36]>> Yeah. Similar idea. It's This thing is probably going to ride the terrain more than that model showing it move off to the northeast. It's probably going to go to the east a little bit more. um is what history says. So, Simla, Mat, um out on Highway 24, uh beautiful drive between the northeast side of El Paso County out toward Lyman. Um in an area that needs uh some rain. Um we'll keep watching that storm here uh that's rolling off to the east.

[00:31:05]>> Peggy says, "Sound is echoing." Um I think the feedback is because I have my computer speakers on and I have to be able to hear. So, I have it turned down quite a bit, but the echoing, I'm sure, is not >> Oh, well, you know what? It might be me, too. Let me keep saying something real quick. Let me turn mine down.

[00:31:24]>> And then Donna Frost says, "Anything coming down to PBLO?"

[00:31:29]Emily is asking that maybe Briergate.

[00:31:33]>> Uh, nothing right now in the Briergate area, but in Black Forest, we had P-size hail reported, I think, mixed in with some heavy raindrops really. Um and then Jennifer said out in Oh, she already read that one from Jennifer, but um Peggy, we we'll work on the sound. Thank you for letting us know that.

[00:31:53]>> Yeah, there might be some spits moving toward PBLO to go back to that question that you were just asking. Like we're picking up uh in some of those cumulus clouds, maybe getting some spits around PBLO West. Nothing heavy. If we are getting something on Highway 50, it's all up to the north. Yeah, I think PBLO's day is going to be tomorrow uh for at least some measurable precipitation, but the severe weather risk stays uh primarily around the Pikes Peak region. Um the Heather Heather asks, "Is the severe risk petering out around the Springs proper for the evening?" Um it's possible. Uh we still have the front to our north. Uh Matt, correct me if I'm wrong. I'm a little late catching up on some of the surface observations, but um you know, in terms of the severe weather risk, the more the atmosphere gets overworked and the more that we have these ongoing storms right now, uh it kind of helps to bring some stabilization because it gets overworked just a bit. So that should lessen the risk this evening. Um but you know, we still haven't a lot of forcing in the atmosphere to the north. Uh so we'll have to keep our eyes on that. It depends on how much sunshine we get after this first round, >> right? That's also something we have to look at.

[00:33:01]>> Yeah, I was when I was looking this morning um you know that front moved a little farther south and had a little more oomph than it looked like um yesterday. And what I think we're looking at here is kind of this what I think now is that that main first push that we're seeing across Elbert County there.

[00:33:20]>> Um anything that's going to be severe I think will be associated with that and any cells a little farther to the north.

[00:33:27]um we may get um you know these couple trailing sort of cells back behind it uh like we were seeing but I don't know Mary I have a hard time thinking uh in an atmosphere that's been worked over a couple times already.

[00:33:42]>> Um >> I agree >> you know and you see that outflow there is pretty pronounced from Calhan back towards security. Um I don't history just tells me that I'm I'm not sure >> we've seen Yeah, I agree. I agree with you completely and I don't I don't know that I foresee the sun really popping out in a huge way after this like first sometimes when that happens just to tell people as we go into the summer sometimes when you get the main line you get it early >> and then the sun comes out the sun is an added uh you know component that destabilizes the atmosphere and can help it recover to become more unstable a as the front continues or the kind of the main system continues to push through.

[00:34:22]So, you can get redevelopment, but I don't I don't I don't think we're going to see that today. Um, we have had another comment here.

[00:34:32]I've think I think this is from Michelle. I've had huge Trager XL literally blow over and some of the wind gust and mountain shadows. The replacement was a few dollars. Okay. I think she's talking about stuff in the past. That Trager is a few hundred.

[00:34:44]>> We got a Trager. What What kind of grill you got? Do you have a Trager?

[00:34:47]>> Uh, no. Don't. Oh, no. Don't have a Trager. It's some some I I really don't know. I really don't know. You know, you just want to eat the barbecue.

[00:34:57]That's all you care about, right?

[00:34:59]>> Yeah. You just called it a barbecue. Do you Do you call it a barbecue or grill?

[00:35:03]>> Uh well, call it a grill. I mean, I I >> I don't Well, to me, I think barbecue is more like low and slow, right? Like, you know, we cook this thing 10, 12 hours, whereas grill is more like get that steak or chicken breast on the grill and, you know.

[00:35:16]>> Yeah. My husband always says barbecue.

[00:35:19]Sorry, honey. if you're watching. He's always like, "I'm gonna put some steaks on the barbecue." I'm like, "What is that? An oxymoron?"

[00:35:25]>> Oh, well, >> I guess, you know, different parts of the country calling things, you know, different stuff.

[00:35:30]>> I know. So, I'm sure there's plenty of people for sure it's split 50/50. Um, but, uh, yeah, it can. That's interesting. Yeah, those strong winds can certainly take over a big old Trager grill.

[00:35:41]>> Uh, Richard just said he's, uh, getting some P-sized tail. Um Richard, let us know where you are at. Uh getting sideways rain with the wind uh at 2:30.

[00:35:53]So maybe he's, you know, maybe up on the north end of Passo County and the south end of that um cell that we are watching here. Um let us know though, sir. Thank you for that report. We sure do appreciate it. Um >> I did get I did see that Denver I mean this is outside of our viewing area.

[00:36:12]They got a quarter of an inch of rain in 20 minutes.

[00:36:15]It's a pretty good dose. And that's that's just kind of goes to show you to remind people, we can give you these rain forecasts all day long about what we think the storm in its entirety is going to spit out, but if you get underneath a thunderstorm, which sometimes can be very hard to pinpoint, you can get that kind of measurement very quickly.

[00:36:33]>> Yeah. So, was that from DIA that you saw?

[00:36:36]>> No, it was one of the news stations, one of the meteorologists at the news station. Um, and then, um, yeah, I I mentioned that P-size Hill and Black Forest. Uh, we've had a lot of that, but looks like we just got all rain now. So, looks like that main little line was a good a good punch of energy for us for a minute. And then look at all that nice dose of rain. It's good to see for sure.

[00:36:58]It looks like PBLO is starting to see a few showers as well.

[00:37:01]>> Yeah, just I think some spits down there. Let's check the traffic cameras down that way. Um, it's always kind of, you know, you'll hear Mary and I talk about this every now and then that radar has some limitations. Um, sometimes it doesn't, I mean, it shows us what's happening where the beam is up above our heads and we don't necessarily, you know, have we don't know what's happening at the surface, but this afternoon, I mean, you know, I'm pretty sure that some of this is making it down to the ground. It's certainly nothing uh heavy uh at this point. And that's not PBLO West. that's in PBLO. But yeah, nothing heavy as of yet. If you're watching from PBLO West, if you're getting some spits, let us know. We'd like to pass that on to folks um and share that news. So, >> what are our due points south of uh Colorado Springs with that outflow boundary? I'm >> current due points. Uh well, we've seen that southwest wind come off of the hills. Um, and so you kind of have, if I did a quick and dirty, >> uh, analysis here, I mean, we're almost getting a low kind of southwest of PBLO um, with a warm front kind of coming off the hills uh, away from that low. So, this is just quick and dirty analysis here. But, you know, we kind of have something like this going on.

[00:38:21]>> So, back to the south of this due points have been dropping off in that southwest wind.

[00:38:26]>> Yeah. Um, and then I mean you have some erratic stuff out here to the north of the warm front, but and then there's in the wind field we're getting outflow from some of these storms here. So the the wind flow you see is a little bit messy, but that's kind of the general.

[00:38:41]Maybe the warm front's a little north of where I drew it right there, but >> does that kind of make sense? Something something like that.

[00:38:47]>> It's recovering just a little bit.

[00:38:49]>> You know, something maybe more like that.

[00:38:51]Um well, I think um we could reset.

[00:38:58]>> Yeah, I think so. Loving I was really loving the direction you were going before I popped on with the uh general movement of the storms as people are just now popping on. I'm going to check and see if we've got any more questions.

[00:39:09]>> Okay.

[00:39:09]>> Um and just as a heads up, Matt and I are doing this today not because we feel like it's like a fear-mongering major. We got major severe weather out there today, but this is kind of the first few days of the season, right? So, we want to be prepared, work out technical kinks, and we want to be able to be there for you >> as we do get into maybe some more serious days later this year, >> right? And I mean, this is what we're about, right? Like, we're not um covering up a golf tournament or anything like that. I mean, this is Peaks to Plains weather. So, when there's weather, we can pop on and we can do stuff. Imagine that.

[00:39:44]>> Yeah.

[00:39:46]>> It's pretty legit. All right, Mary. uh you you check some other stuff and I'll I'll keep moving forward here for folks that are jumping in and out. We know that's going to happen when we're doing um the live coverage here. Uh you know, I'll take you from now into the rest of the afternoon and then we'll actually maybe start talking about um what happens as we move into tomorrow and the early part of the week cuz if you're on here with us, we might as well do that.

[00:40:11]So, with where that storm is now over Elbert County, you can see that Skycast has the right idea here. It's a little bit slow on its forecast. The storms are a little farther east than where this thing is. Here's three o'clock. That cell's already from about Simla, uh, kind of to the north of there, uh, running across Elbert County. But over the next couple of hours, the idea is right that this whole movement of storms even out of the Pikes Peak region will kind of continue off to the northeast because this is the steering flow that is out ahead of the trough that we are talking about for the early part of next week. I do think that cell in Elbert County is going to be a little bit farther south than what Skycast is showing here because it's going to ride the terrain. So, there will be some cells that are moving northeast, but we'll watch the cells that get a little bit more of an eastward movement to them. Um, those will be the ones that will tend to have not only the potential for some larger hail, but some stronger wind gusts as well. And if you see the storms clustered up like that out across eastern Colorado, uh, as we move toward 5 and 7:00, those things will become some pretty significant wind makers across the area. Let me show you a wider view here and let's start talking about what happens over the next couple of days because we have this system off to our west that we have been talking about for a good part of a week now. And over the western US, you can see that there is some snow back up across northern parts of Nevada, believe it or not, this afternoon. And so that shows you that this has some pretty chilly air with it.

[00:41:55]There's also some snow up across parts of Idaho, up across western parts of Montana. And so if I put the jetream on here for you, you can see that there is a pretty significant jet streak diving into the backside of this system. And the stronger a jet streak is, that's one of the ways that's a clue to us that there's a separation between some warm and some cold air. So to see uh some snow down here in in a part of Nevada that usually doesn't get that this time of year, that shows you that this system does have some cold air with it. Of course, we are in the southwest flow today out ahead of it. There is a little kink in the flow. In fact, there is a couple of them. Uh these are the waves that are helping to drive uh some of the thunderstorms today. They're really subtle, but they are there and they are doing the lift and helping to kind of drive these thunderstorms. Let's talk about what happens over the next couple of days. Because as we move through tonight, we get this system to come in from the west to end up over the northwestern part of Colorado into early tomorrow morning and through the middle part of the day. And then it's going to take a jog off to the northeast as we move from Monday night into Tuesday. But that doesn't mean that we are done cuz check this out. You see back here, see this kind of kink in the flow back here over Nevada and California. Well, that's some energy in the atmosphere, a wave you'll hear us call it. And that is going to interact with the cool air that is east of the Rocky Mountains. And eventually we'll see some cool air move over the Rockies as well. So if I take this a little bit farther into the future from Tuesday afternoon into Tuesday night and Wednesday morning and we're still in southwest flow out ahead of that little subtle dip in the black lines that you see back over northern Arizona, Vegas, over St. George, Utah.

[00:43:57]That overrunning in that southwest flow is probably going to help to give us a little bit of lift in the atmosphere to keep us kind of cool and unsettled I think into Wednesday. Now, this is Wednesday morning right here. But if I show you uh the same computer model a little farther out into the future and we'll just walk you from tomorrow evening into and through Tuesday and into Wednesday. Watch what happens with this. So remember that main wave is kind of lifting off to the northeast as we head into Monday night. There may be a couple showers around into early Tuesday morning. I can't guarantee that those ones are going to be there, but we're pushing that cool air up against the eastern Rockies and we have some general kind of light largecale lift over the top of that. So it's certainly a possibility. and early Tuesday, we will be colder than what we have as we move from tonight into Monday morning. So, you see Skycast is trying to show a couple snowflakes even over the Palmer Divide. Again, I can't guarantee yet that that is going to be there, but it's certainly something that we'll watch.

[00:45:09]However, as we move into the back part of Tuesday and that system from the west gets closer, we destabilize the atmosphere with the heating of the day, the energy from the sun. We will see some showers develop and these are more likely to last into Wednesday morning as we start to get under the influence of that system coming in from the west. Now it's late May. By this point on Wednesday, we're at the 20th of May. And so obviously terrain plays a role on who gets rain and who gets snow. So does the time of day. But it is possible that we get some light accumulation over our mountain areas west of I25 when the timing is right and the intensity of these showers is right as we move through the afternoons and evenings. Obviously, when the just daily dural temperature movement up and down happens and you can get a heavier shower to move overhead, you'll drop the rain and snow line. So, that's something that I think Mary and I are going to have to take in like 12 to 24-hour stretches here as we watch the evolution of that system from the west with that cooler air in this over the um eastern plains.

[00:46:22]But look at that into Wednesday. Skycast is pretty excited about some decent moisture across the area lasting into Wednesday night before we would get that thing out of here. So, how much water are we talking about? Well, let me show you that. I'm going to pull up this is the same computer model here and I am going to run this and I'm just going to edit this while we're on here together.

[00:46:47]So I'm taking this from let's do right now through Wednesday at let's do 1000 p.m.

[00:46:57]And so now I got to change the banner.

[00:46:59]This is the kind of stuff that like, you know, you get to see us do together that, you know, when you were watching Mary and I on TV, you didn't get to see this stuff cuz we had it already, but as we just kind of eb and flow and talk about different things, you get to watch this in real time. So, I looked at this uh I showed this model this morning, but this is a new model run that I haven't shown yet that takes us through Wednesday evening. And so you can see the potentials picking up uh for some moisture over a half inch. Like that's getting a little bit more likely here in southern Colorado as we move into the middle part of the week. And obviously that is good news. I mean we always will take the water in Colorado. But it's also getting a little more on the higher end of some things over an inch perhaps up across the Palmer Divide and that's just something that we'll have to keep an eye on. So, if we look at the detailed forecast here through the week, here's what the extendeds kind of look like. And I'll I'll show you that here and I'll I'll let you look at this in full screen so you can focus on the details. So, PBLO will have a chance of some showers tomorrow. I think as we move into Tuesday afternoon, you know, we we may start to see some from the west that may not move into PBLO until Tuesday evening, but we're staying cool and unsettled here with temperatures in the 60s and then maybe our best chance of rain coming across a good chunk of southern Colorado on Wednesday. And while it will be showery, certainly expect some embedded thunderstorms in there, that's not a pattern that screams severe weather. Uh Thursday may have some thunderstorms around in the afternoon as that upper level system moves off to the east. But then for the weekend, I think we get into a pattern that's more indicative of the typical afternoon and evening stuff that ends up being more tied to the higher terrain.

[00:48:47]So for Colorado Springs, uh cool and unsettled here early in the week. Um, as we get into the uh late part of the week, again, watching some showers in the afternoons and evenings uh up over the mountain areas and then for Monument as well. We kind of dry out some and warm up some as we head into the back part of the week. So, that's kind of what that looks like as of now. I'm going to pop back bring Mary back in here with us because um she's got something to add. So, Mary, go ahead.

[00:49:16]>> Well, it looks like we have a little appendage showing up in Rama. And so I was going to get you to bring the radar back.

[00:49:22]>> Oh, thanks for bringing me back to the focus.

[00:49:25]>> No, you did great. That's great. But, you know, I I can't tell if we've got a dislodge of an outflow here. We've got a little bit of an appendage because the >> velocity is showing.

[00:49:35]>> Pop back in here.

[00:49:36]>> Maybe some messy little >> Oh, yeah. You're right.

[00:49:38]>> swirls and rotation.

[00:49:40]>> Yep. You were right. Oh, yeah. That thing's looking a lot more organized here for sure. Um, so what Mary was talking about, and you can go ahead and walk through this, but you were talking I don't know why I keep the arrow on there. Let me take that off.

[00:49:54]>> Might be easier with F. It's It's hard It's hard to tell. It's It's very messy convection right now. But um, >> you know, this is what you were talking about earlier when you have the terrain influence. Um, with those in inflow winds, you can kind of get a little bit of spin as the system kind of ejects east of the Palmer Divide. So, um, it looked a little bit better. It looked a little bit better on my radar over here, but yeah, you can see that's that's the outflow boundary. So, it's hard to tell.

[00:50:27]Um, >> yeah, let's do let me take one of these off here. So, here's the PBLO radar and then Here's the radar out of uh the Front Range airport. And this is kind of in a spot where you have to kind of use both.

[00:50:44]Um because it's almost equidistant between the two. Whoops.

[00:50:51]Do you want to see velocity on one of them?

[00:50:54]>> Kind of.

[00:50:56]>> Let's see. So, here's >> I mean, if anything, they're just getting some wind.

[00:51:01]>> Yeah. So that's the storm relative right there.

[00:51:05]>> And then there's straight >> it looks like this the beginning of the out out you know pushing in outflow outflow winds that are y >> the the model was picking up on earlier.

[00:51:15]So it's going to and I think as that storm starts to move east that's going to be some 60 70 mph gust >> as it moves into Lincoln County that's possible.

[00:51:24]>> Yeah which is like what they had yesterday. So we'll keep an eye on that.

[00:51:28]This certainly has become the dominant cell though. Remember how kind of when we started um we were talking about that like here's the front range radar and notice how everything farther to the north like that has a lot more becoming stratapform kind of look to it.

[00:51:44]>> Yeah.

[00:51:45]>> Almost. And so uh yeah I would expect this cell to almost just drive straight east on I7 there.

[00:51:53]>> Yeah. So, for everyone just joining us, nothing imminent happening around our region. This some nice thunderstorms.

[00:52:00]You're going to hear some rolls of thunder. Uh we're just kind of uh we kind of hopped on what about 30 minutes ago. And you know, we expected things to be a little intense on the front end and now we're seeing just some general thunderstorms, which is a good thing because that means you can kind of sit back and relax just a bit and enjoy some of the rain showers. Uh so if you're just now hopping on with us, you know, this is uh we're looking for the hail more towards the north and east, kind of outside of our viewing areas where those parameters are going to be the highest today.

[00:52:29]>> Yep. And uh this cell is running right on Highway 86 out east of Kya. Uh moving to the northeast, the core is being tracked uh within that um at about 22 miles per hour. So I have this um these little indicators you see here in 15minute increments. So that would have it moving across I7 between AGOT and Lyman between 30 and 45 minutes from now. So Mary and I will keep an eye on this. I don't think we need to beat a dead horse or anything. I mean, I think the hail with this could be getting up over a half inch. Uh if I look at that core now, um but like you said, a wind threat is going to be picking up here over the next 30 to 45 minutes as well as this system gets set to move out of Elbert County and eventually across northern Lincoln County. Should stay to the north, Highway 94 through Punkin Center, running out toward Highway 40 and 287. Um and you know, Lyman's going to get hit for the second day in a row with a thunderstorm. They'll certainly take the rain, but um you know they're hoping that the hail sizes um stay at a manageable level and so do we.

[00:53:40]>> So >> yeah, gives everybody anxiety. I guess we got a land spout reported I70 and Tower Road from the NWS office in Boulder. So that's farther north and that's, you know, kind of where we were expecting.

[00:53:51]Uh God, land spouts are so hard to find, aren't they?

[00:53:55]>> Yeah, they're they are >> easy to find. Not >> sometimes they're they're thinner than the radar beam, >> you know. So, I mean, you you can't see them. Um, let's take >> just the front radar here because >> on that note, before we let folks go, I want to check um DIA, see what's going on.

[00:54:16]>> Um because I know I was mentioning that yesterday if people had inbound and out inbound and outbound flights. for DIA or if you were heading to the airport, you know, sometimes they can do those little ground stops and start have delays.

[00:54:31]>> Um, let's see here. We'll pull up our little >> Yeah, it's hard to think they didn't have one, right? I mean, >> I know >> those things were moving kind of right toward them and sort of split the difference there. A little bowling action.

[00:54:46]Watch that.

[00:54:48]>> Oh, yeah.

[00:54:52]But yeah, I'm sure the I'm sure the crews were in. So yeah, that's always a flying into Denver on a summer is always a wild card.

[00:55:00]Now you if you want to know the meteorology perspective uh as a meteorologist when I book flights if it is between April and I don't know September I try really hard not to get an afternoon flight because it's just just too predictable with afternoon instability and then the monsoon flow and moisture. You're going to have issues getting out of DIA. Not always, but I try to always get those early morning flights when the atmosphere can be counted on to be the most stable in the morning.

[00:55:30]>> Right.

[00:55:32]All right. So, I think uh I think that should cover it for now. Um we'll, you know, we have obviously some active weather that we talked about here that we have to watch early in the week. Um, it's nice to have some active weather to forecast here. Getting to the time of year where, you know, the the likelihood of significant impacts from snow at lower elevations really drops like almost every 2 or 3 days that goes by.

[00:55:58]Um, but we can't rule out some snowflakes, especially if you have a thunderstorm at the right time of, you know, evening or something like that over the Palmer Divide. And we'll keep focused on that over the next couple of days as you know, we we like this opportunity for some water that we have here coming through the middle part of the week.

[00:56:15]>> Yeah, absolutely. I think if we get any snow, it's going to be kind of a a a wide period, right, where we're going to have a lot a little bit of snow, then a lot of melting, especially west of I25.

[00:56:25]So for those that are worried, >> is that going to impact travel? I don't foresee that this week. I don't know how you feel, but you know, one to three inch range, two to four on the higher side, maybe above 7,000 feet, right?

[00:56:36]You're still going to have cycles of melting and transitioning back to rain.

[00:56:39]So, you know, it's uh it's going to be a decent amount of water, but we're we're not over overly worried about >> travel impacts, right?

[00:56:46]>> Yeah, I agree with that. I think you're right on on target there. And that's pretty typical for the time of year, too. So, yeah.

[00:56:52]>> Um All right. Well, that will do it for Mary and I this goround. If you haven't downloaded the Peaks to Plains weather app, uh you should. And Mary and I would both be appreciative if not just that you turned your location on because that's how we can take best care of you.

[00:57:08]uh if there's a severe thunderstorm warning or if we're doing coverage like this um we'll send things out to people that are out ahead of storms and say hey you guys uh you know like as an example if this thing was rolling toward PBLO um maybe coming across Fremont County we'd be letting Canyon City and PBLO know that hey you know a decently strong storm is coming your way but we're not going to waste your time if you're in Salida or something like that so keeping the location turned on is a good way that we can take care of you and we'd also appreciate Appreciate it. Right, Mary? If uh everybody, you know, when they're at work and if they're like, "Oh, hey, they were doing a good job Sunday afternoon, uh maybe tell your co-workers and your family about Peaks to Plains weather."

[00:57:47]>> Yeah, def definitely do that because word of mouth is very powerful, especially here in Colorado for people that are new to the state. Um you know, the uh the weather can be a bit jarring.

[00:57:58]So, especially if you're from a calmer area of the country, so sharing that and passing it along is uh pretty vital.

[00:58:04]Yeah, it's uh I don't know if this has ever happened to you, but I've had a couple times when I've been at um weather conferences where people have said, "Why are you still in Colorado doing that to yourself?" Like, why are you, you know, it's like, "Oh, it keeps us on our toes." Right?

[00:58:20]>> It's challenging. It's more challenging.

[00:58:21]I think there's a few other places, I would say, in the country that have the same amount of challenge that we have here east of the Rockies, but it's it's more challenging than most locations. So yeah, you have to I always think you say it best. You have to be humble and uh you know, take on the challenge and not let it stress you out too much.

[00:58:40]>> Yeah, I agree with you. Um for those of you before we let you go here, similar out toward Lyman, areas in eastern Elbert County dealing with that storm, some hail around a half inch or so in diameter, maybe a little bit bigger than that. And some wind gusts between 40 m hour that over the next hour and this storm is starting to become outflow dominant a little bit. that I can tell there uh which is per forecast and we'll start to get the wind gust here as it continues over eastern Colorado uh up around 60 mph here over the next couple of hours. So, we'll keep an eye on that.

[00:59:09]We've got some storms moving out of Colorado Springs. Mary and I appreciate you uh being part of Peaks to Plains weather. This is our weather together.

[00:59:18]And we don't mean just Mary and I here.

[00:59:20]It's like the collective >> one big family.

[00:59:22]>> Yeah, big family. Exactly. Neighbors helping neighbors. So, thanks for stopping by this afternoon. If we get a severe thunderstorm warning or something like that and it's close enough to the viewing area here, we'll let you know.

[00:59:33]But once it gets north of I7, we kind of let things go. But you can still use the Peaks to Plains weather app if you're traveling in that area. Um, you can keep your location turned on. You can use the weather map in there. You can track the storms yourself. It's highly customizable. If you have not pushed buttons in the Peaks to Plains weather app, you should certainly do so. So for Mary, I'm Matt and uh, thanks for stopping by today. We appreciate it and we'll keep an eye on the storms here the rest of the afternoon. Thanks for stopping by.

[01:00:02]>> Bye.