Denver Weather: Wet And Gloomy To Start The Week, Brighter And Drier To Finish

DENVER (CBS4) - The weather pattern that developed over the weekend will continue through the first few days of the work week. Showers and thunderstorms are likely Monday and Tuesday followed by increasing sunshine later in the week.

Denver and most of the Front Range will be mainly during the morning and early afternoon on Monday with only a 20% chance for showers through about 2 p.m. Then the chance for showers and mostly non-severe thunderstorms will increase considerably during the afternoon and early evening.

After 5 p.m., mainly areas around Denver and Boulder will get at least a brief shower. The rain may arrive a bit later for the Fort Collins and Greeley areas.

While the chance for thunderstorms is good, the chance for severe weather will be mostly limited to far southeast Colorado. Communities such as La Junta, Lamar, and Springfield could experience hail large enough to cause damage. Any hail in the Denver metro area is expected to be small and largely not destructive.

It will also stay cooler than normal across most of Colorado on Monday with high temperatures only in the lower 60s around Denver, Boulder, and Fort Collins. That's about 10 degrees below normal for the middle of May.

With the cool weather, the snow level should drop far enough below tree line in the mountains for accumulating snow in many mountain towns from late Monday through late Tuesday. A few spots could get more than 6 inches above 10,000 feet while most mountain towns will get no more than 3 inches.

Looking ahead to the end of the week, winds in the upper-levels of the atmosphere over Colorado will shift to the southwest allowing for drier and warmer weather by Thursday.

It won't be dry enough to completely eliminate the chance for late day thunderstorms in the metro area, buy the chance will drop to only 20% on Thursday and 30% on Friday. Similar "slight" storm chances are expected for the weekend.