DENVER — It's totally understandable if one of the first things you do in the morning is open up your weather app to check the forecast.
You might want to be careful with which app you look at this week, though -- at least in eastern Colorado.
Automated weather apps (which constitute the majority of weather apps) will change, sometimes wildly, in the span of just a few hours as computer forecast models adjust their forecasts. A highly uncertain weekend forecast means that any slight nudge in the position of an area of low pressure and the exact timing of certain cold fronts will have huge impacts on our forecast.
Most apps use an automated blend of computer forecast models to determine their forecasts. The models are having a difficult time with the exact timing of this weekend's storm, which means that you might see that Friday's forecast will flip from a high in the upper 40s or low 60s, depending on which app you look at. Saturday might show snow on some apps, and a high in the 50s with sun in another.
The most unreliable days for weather apps along the Front Range will be Thursday, Friday and Saturday. The exact timing of a series of cold fronts will make automated app forecasts more unreliable than usual over the next few days.
If you're looking for the most reliable forecast, without bragging, you should use the 9NEWS app, which is hand-curated multiple times a day by our team of meteorologists. Experienced, trained meteorologists can best determine which models are more likely to be right.
For example, cold fronts tend to move quicker than computer forecast models show. That means Thursday (and Friday) are probably going to lean a bit colder than what some models might say.
Computer models often struggle with early-season storm systems like this weekend's, so meteorologists know which ones tend to perform the best in situations like this.
So be careful with your weather apps this week; you might notice they'll flip around wildly over the next few days.
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