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Denver Weather: Severe Storms Possible Saturday Afternoon, Large Hail Main Threat

DENVER (CBS4) - Eastern Colorado and the Front Range woke up to extensive low cloud cover on Saturday with dense fog in some areas on the northeast plains. The cloud cover represents plenty of low-level moisture that will serve as fuel for showers and thunderstorms by afternoon.

A large part of eastern Colorado, including all of the Denver metro area, is under a slight risk to see severe storms. The threat level is a 2 on a 5-point scale in yellow areas on the maps above. The main threat from any storms that develop would be large hail and damaging wind gusts, but an isolated tornado is possible with any severe storm.

Flash flooding will also be a concern in and around burn scars, including those left behind from the Calwood Fire and Cameron Peak Fire. It doesn't take a very large amount of rain to create problems. As little as a quarter-inch of rain in these areas could trigger a flash flood.

Today's weather is the beginning of a new weather pattern that will settle in for the next several days as an area of low pressure currently over California cuts off from the main jet stream flow. It will slowly meander through the desert southwest and keep the weather unsettled through at least Tuesday of the upcoming week.

High temperatures on this Saturday will be warmest on the western slope where we'll see more sunshine. Some places could get well into the 80s such as Grand Junction.

Meanwhile in Denver, on the plains and in the mountains we'll see mostly 60s and 70s with more clouds than sunshine. The limited amount of sun we do get will be the instigator for our afternoon showers and storms.

Sunday will be another day with the potential to see some severe thunderstorms once again, but the higher risk will likely shift a bit to the south. As we get into Monday and Tuesday we could still see some thunderstorms here and there, but it looks mostly like a widespread rain threat.

We'll have to keep a close eye on all of the area burn scars over the next several days. This particular storm isn't all that cold so snow levels will remain pretty high. By Monday night we could see some snow down to around 10,000 feet in the mountains.

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