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Steamboat Springs — Steamboat Springs is flirting with a rainy holiday weekend, but a meteorologist said it's hard to say how much precipitation monsoon winds might bring to the Yampa Valley.

"Unfortunately, it looks like it's going to be pretty wet - pretty wet indeed," said meteorologist Tom Renwick, of the National Weather Service in Grand Junction. "We've got this monsoon moisture that's really pumping up. : There will be times of heavy downpours and showers and then sun and then a heavy downpour - you know how it cycles like that."

The weather service is predicting 0.5 inches of rain in Steamboat by the end of the weekend, but Renwick noted there could be much more precipitation in some locations. He said it's possible that 0.5 to 1 inches of rain will fall in spans of just 15 to 20 minutes in a particular location, while another location 10 miles away stays sunny and dry.

"It's going to be hit or miss," Renwick said.

Heavy rains are expected to enter Steamboat by 2 or 3 p.m. today. Renwick said they will die down by Saturday morning but return by Saturday afternoon. Daily high temperatures should be in the upper 70s and lower 80s throughout the weekend, Renwick said.

Commercial tubing began in Steamboat on Wednesday, and the Yampa River at the Fifth Street Bridge was flowing at 626 cubic feet per second at about 5 p.m. Thursday. The depth of the river at the same location was about 2.8 feet. Although rains may cause spikes in flows and depths, Renwick said both will trend downward overall by the end of the weekend. By Monday, stream flow is expected to drop to 433 cfs, and depth is expected to drop to 2.2 feet.

Backdoor Sports owner Peter Van De Carr said the river "looks awesome," but is flowing too strong to allow young children to tube the lower and faster town stretch of the Yampa River. He allowed only people 18 and older to rent tubes Wednesday and people 16 and older Thursday. Van De Carr said his age restrictions will continue to fall daily with the river.

"Folks who are not real river-savvy are struggling a little bit," he said. "We can't really run with the little kids."

As tubing grows ever more popular in Steamboat, so has the practice among individual tubers of using the city's free buses as a shuttle to launch points. Steamboat Springs Transit Operations Manager Jonathan Flint said tubers are allowed to use the buses as long as they and their tubes are clean and dry and they do not inhibit others' ability to enter and exit buses and move down aisles. Flint also said that although passengers are allowed to bring tubes on the bus, other river conveyances such as kayaks, large rafts and inflatable mattresses are not allowed.