FXUS65 KPUB 152317 AFDPUB Area Forecast Discussion National Weather Service Pueblo CO 517 PM MDT Wed Apr 15 2026 .KEY MESSAGES... - A Red Flag Warning is in effect for Thursday, with portions of the southern plains added to a Fire Weather Watch for Friday. - A cold front arrives Friday, which will bring rain and snow chances, along with much colder temperatures. A Freeze Watch has been issued for all of our plains for early Saturday morning! - We warm up and dry out for Sunday into the middle of next week. && .SHORT TERM /THROUGH THURSDAY NIGHT/... Issued at 1240 PM MDT Wed Apr 15 2026 Rest of Today and Tonight.. Gap flow areas are likely to continue seeing spotty elevated fire weather conditions through the rest of this afternoon. The San Luis Valley and the Arkansas River Valley may also see briefly critical conditions late this afternoon, but conditions are not expected to be widespread or long-lived enough to warrant any fire weather highlights. Overnight low temperatures will be near normal in the high country and for mountain valleys, but will be warmer than normal across the plains, with most locations only cooling into the upper 30s and 40s. Tomorrow and Tomorrow Night.. Models bring an upper low into the northern Rockies throughout the day tomorrow. This will increase southwest flow over our region, leading to a higher end Red Flag day for much of south central and southeast Colorado. Southwest winds gusting to 60 mph are likely over the high country, with gusts to 50 mph possible over portions of the San Luis Valley, and gusts to 40 mph over the plains. Single digit relative humidity values are expected on the plains, with humidity values in the low to mid teens over the high country and the San Luis Valley. Daytime highs tomorrow look to soar back into the mid 80s across much of the plains with strong downsloping over the region. Despite seeing temperatures around 15 to 20 degrees warmer than normal, all three of our climate sites look to be at least 4 or 5 degrees below standing records for tomorrow. A Red Flag Warning is in effect for most zones (only the San Juans are excluded) for tomorrow afternoon from 11 AM through 11 PM. The late expiration time is due to continued gusty winds and continued mixing late into the night. Much of our plains look to only see moisture recoveries into the 20% range heading into Friday morning, however, the timing of our incoming cold front could change that.. && .LONG TERM /FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY/... Issued at 1240 PM MDT Wed Apr 15 2026 Friday and Saturday.. Models are still in disagreement about timing for the cold front that should come through sometime on Friday. The GFS has now pushed timing all the way up into the late Thursday night/early Friday morning timeframe. The NAM, EC, and Canadian all have various timing ranging from early Friday morning to later Friday afternoon. This frontal passage timing will ultimately decide several things. Most importantly, it will determine critical fire weather chances versus precipitation chances across portions of our plains. If model solutions that bring the front through earlier verify, daytime highs may end up being cooler than currently forecast, and precip chances may end up starting slightly earlier in the afternoon on Friday as well once upslope gets started. If the front is delayed, daytime highs may end up being several degrees warmer, especially across our southern plains, and widespread critical fire weather conditions may also be possible. For now, a fire weather watch has been issued for Las Animas and Baca counties for Friday afternoon, where the front is most likely to come through late enough in the day to warrant several hours or highlights in the late morning and early afternoon. Further north, where the front comes through earlier, chances for rain and snow showers look to hold off for several hours after the frontal passage as temperatures cool and upslope gets going. The central mountains are likely to see snow showers early Friday morning, with much of the Pikes Peak region seeing light snow chances later in the morning. Snow amounts will be minimal over the Palmer Divide for the Friday morning commute, though again this may change if the front comes through sooner. Total accumulations for the central mountains from Thursday night through Saturday morning look to be around 1 to 3 inches, with similar totals for the higher elevations of Teller and El Paso counties. The heaviest snowfall rates for the I-25 corridor over the Palmer Divide look to fall Friday afternoon as of this writing. Precipitation comes to an end Saturday morning though, with lots of clearing across the region. This system is much colder than what we've seen this season, and our entire plains are likely to see hard freeze conditions after vegetation has bloomed/leafed out across the region due to abnormally warm conditions the past few months. For this reason, a Freeze Watch has been hoisted for all of our plains for Saturday morning. Though we are several week ahead of our "normal" window for issuance of late season freeze highlights, we want to point out that sensitive vegetation and irrigation systems will be at risk this weekend! We remain around 5 degrees or so cooler than normal heading into Saturday afternoon, with most of our plains only warming into the 60s under clearing skies and mainly dry conditions. Just for awareness, the mean date of last freeze for our climate sites are as follows: Pueblo: April 29th Colorado Springs: May 8th Alamosa: June 7th Sunday Onwards.. Ridging sets up over the western conus for Sunday through the first half of next week. This will bring us back into the 70s on the plains for Sunday as we transition into a warming and drying pattern, but likely back well into the 80s for Monday through Wednesday. Humidity values look to be very low given the dry airmass and much warmer than normal temperatures, but winds look to be sub- critical, at least for Sunday and Monday, as ridging develops. Another system takes shape out west through the second half of the week, which may lead to enough increase in southwest flow to bring in another round of critical fire weather conditions by Wednesday, or possibly even Tuesday, though it is too early to tell at this stage. Thunderstorms and severe weather may be possible with this next system later next week. && .AVIATION /00Z TAFS THROUGH 00Z THURSDAY/... Issued at 511 PM MDT Wed Apr 15 2026 VFR conditions are anticipated during the next 24 hours at all 3 taf sites, KPUB, KALS and KCOS. Winds will be light tonight into tomorrow morning, but will become breezy from the south to southwest during the afternoon at each of the taf sites. && .PUB WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES... Red Flag Warning from 11 AM to 11 PM MDT Thursday for COZ220>222-224>237. Freeze Watch from late Friday night through Saturday morning for COZ083>089-093>099. Fire Weather Watch from Friday morning through Friday evening for COZ230-233-237. && $$ SHORT TERM...EHR LONG TERM...EHR AVIATION...HODANISH