Tuesday was sunny for most of the state while the storm that brought snow to the eastern mountains on Monday night dropped light snow on Monarch and the southern mountains with just a few inches of accumulation.

Now on Thursday morning, the next storm is approaching from the northwest and it is already bringing clouds to the northern mountains with snow at Steamboat.

The latest models continue to show snow, mostly for the northern mountains, on Wednesday, Wednesday night, Thursday, and Thursday night. Unfortunately, I do not see much agreement between runs of the same model or across different models, so it is hard for me to say exactly when we’ll have the best chance for powder.

My thought right now is that there could be some fresh snow during the day Wednesday, and combined with additional snow on Wednesday night, Thursday morning could be soft, at least on the north-facing groomers. We might see another wave of snow later on Thursday and Thursday evening, which would provide a few more inches for Friday morning. Again, most of this snow will fall in the northern mountains, near and north of I-70.

The high-resolution NAM 3km model shows the following forecast for Wednesday from 600 am through Friday at 1200 pm. You can see the waves of precipitation move across the northern mountains. If you do not see the animation below, click here: https://opsw.co/2IWTh5z

After this system, it looks like Friday and Saturday will be dry.

Then the next storm will skirt the northern mountains on Saturday night and Sunday, perhaps bringing a few inches of snow with the best chance for a bit of powder during the day on Sunday, and an outside chance for soft turns on Monday morning if the snow hangs around long enough.

All of these systems – from Wednesday through Sunday – are tracking just a bit further north than I’d like to see for significant snow totals in the northern mountains. Still, there will be enough moisture and energy to create snow, with at least low-end powder likely on a few days at a few of the northern mountains.

The storm track will generally stay to the north of Colorado next week, though I can’t rule out snow in the northern mountains if a storm happens to drop a bit further south.

Most of the longer-range models now agree that our next chance for a more significant storm will be a bit later than I previously thought, sometime very late next week, next weekend, or early the following week, roughly from April 6-9.

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

Geography Key

Northern Mountains
Steamboat, Granby, Beaver Creek, Vail, Ski Cooper, Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, Loveland, Abasin, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass, Eldora, Rocky Mountain National Park, Cameron Pass

Along the Divide
Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass

East of the Divide
Eldora, Echo, Rocky Mountain National Park, Cameron Pass

Central Mountains
Aspen, Sunlight, Monarch, Crested Butte, Irwin, Powderhorn

Southern Mountains
Telluride, Silverton – north side of the southern mountains | Purgatory, Wolf Creek – south side of the southern mountains