Colorado Weather: Strong Winds Ready To Rock The Rockies

DENVER (CBS4)- We have a First Alert Weather Day posted for Tuesday. Colorado will be getting hit with a prolonged wind event thru the middle of the week. It will be the double push of a strong cold front and a strong jet stream pushing smack over the central Rockies. The strong wind gusts have the potential to raise the threat of fire danger in many areas of the state.

The strongest part of the jet stream flowing at altitude is the Jet Max which will be over the state on Tuesday. This max can see winds over 100 mph to 150 mph. Now we don't see winds that strong down on the surface but, the overhead jet energizes the wind across the region.

We have a High Wind Warning for the Front Range Foothills Monday night thru Tuesday for winds as high as 80 mph! Pretty strong when you consider hurricane force is 74 and higher.

For Tuesday there is also a High Wind Warning from Fort Collins and Greeley out over northeastern Colorado for up to 60 mph wind gusts. That also, includes Colorado Springs, Pueblo and the foothills and mountains near Trinidad in southern parts of the state.

The Denver metro area has a High Wind Watch in place for Tuesday with wind gusts ranging from 50 to 60 mph 9am thru 9pm Tuesday.

At the time of this writing there were just a few spots of eastern Colorado with a Red Flag Warning for high fire danger Tuesday. It is important to remember that even if you are not in a Red Flag area the threat of fire still exists with wind gusts of this strength expected. Any spark of any kind over the Eastern Plains Tuesday may have the potential to spark an out of control wildfire.

In the mountains there is the double whammy of wind and snow with 5 to 10 inches possible in the northern Front Range Mountains along with winds up to 70 mph gusts.