You guys are awesome! About 100 people are signing up for OpenSnow Pro every day, including pro skiers like Chris Davenport and ski patrolers across the state. If it's good enough for them, it'll probably work for you too:-) Here are the list of features. Yes, we make some money from advertising but we'd rather spend time improving our forecasts than figuring out better advertising techniques. If you enjoy the site, consider upgrading your existing account or signing up for a new one. We'll keep improving both the free and pro sides of the site, so this is just the start. As always, I'd love comments and suggestions: [email protected]

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Summary: No big changes to the forecast from yesterday. Saturday will be a powder day in the San Juans (Telluride, Silverton, Wolf Creek, Durango) and all other areas should see the best snow late Saturday afternoon or Sunday morning. Light snow will continue Sunday through Monday, with potentially another round of heavier snow for the San Juans Sunday night into Monday morning. Then it'll be dry Tuesday/Wednesday before another storm slips through on Thursday/Friday of next week. The second half of February should produce more consistent chances for snow with a favorable pattern setting up.

The details: This is a big weekend for powder across the country. Our 2-day Powder Finder Map shows good snow across the Rockies and of course the huge totals in New England. Check out the forecasted totals for some areas in the east: MA | RI | VT | NH | ME. 

As of Friday morning, our storm is still well to the west spinning over Nevada. You can see the snow out to the east and northeast of the storm. Some of this snow will work its way into western Colorado Friday afternoon and Friday night.

By Friday afternoon, the storm will still be well to the west, but I do expect some snow squalls to move over western Colorado Friday night. The southern San Juans are favored with a few inches of snow tonight because southerly winds are good for them as they upslope from the lower elevations of the desert to the south. Other areas could see a random inch or two tonight because there is a LOT of storm energy out ahead of the main storm. This storm energy can lift the atmosphere and create snow squalls that will persist even though a wind direction from the south is a terrible wind direction for snow for most mountains. I wouldn't be surprised to see a goose egg snow report for most central and northern mountains on Saturday morning, but some mountains might report a few inches due to a snow squall. 

I don't know if you know this, but before I write this update each morning, I spend 1-2 hours producing a forecast for each ski area (and some backcountry areas) in Colorado. You can see these detailed 5-day forecasts -- separated by day and night -- here on the 1-5 Day Forecast tab on the Colorado. You can also click on each resort/location to see more details including temperature forecasts (example: Vail). I was surprised to learn that people didn't know that there was more to this website than my daily write up, so check out those details as I can't mention every mountain and time period in The Daily Snow. In fact, we have these details for EVERY ski area in the country. Pretty cool, eh?

A switch to westerly winds should occur middy on Saturday and this will start the snow going for many central and northern mountains (roughly from Aspen on north to I-70 and Steamboat). Snow will be heavy Saturday morning in the San Juans, and as the winds slowly switch from S to SW to W, the snow will pick up in areas further north. Crested Butte and Telluride can do well with WSW winds, so I expect good totals there by midday and afternoon on Saturday. The I-70 resorts are a tough call. I don't see winds going all the way to NW, so this will limit snow in Summit County (Keystone, Breckenridge, Abasin, Loveland). However a W wind does do well for Powderhorn / Sunlight / Aspen / Monarch / Beaver Creek and somewhat for Vail.

Snow will continue Saturday night, but become more showery than steady. Still, I think Sunday moring could be a great time to ride for most areas. By Sunday midday and afternoon, we'll be caught in a little lull between Storm #1 heading away to our east and Storm #2 dropping down the backside.

On Sunday night into Monday morning, Storm #2 should get the snow going again, and the best accumulations will once again be in the San Juans around Telluride, Silverton, Durango, and Wolf Creek. There's also a chance for a little eastern upslope in the foothills and front range cities on Sunday night, but that's an incredibly uncertain forecast. Monday could be another nice morning to ride, but that's a tougher call right now.

Tuesday and Wednesday will clear out, then another storm will slip through in northwest flow on Thursday through Friday. Hard to nail down details 7 days out, but you can see that I have some accumulations in the 6-10 day forecast for some areas of the state. We also have the 6-10 day forecast for every ski area in the country, and while it doesn't show exact snow amounts, the ranges and confidence levels we show will give you an indication of where and when to chase snow. It's rare that a 7 day snow forecast is 100% correct, but we can usually provide you with a general trend to help in your planning (snowy, dry, etc).

The news I'm most excited to talk about is that the storm track looks favorable through the middle and end of the month. This does NOT guarantee massive storms, but at least it sets us up for the chance to see frequent storms moving along a path that would bring snow to Colorado. Waaahooo! We're still about 25% below average for snowpack state wide, so we need all the help we can get. Just one or two days of snow can make skiing conditions great, but I'm more concerned about getting consistent moisture to alleviate our drought.

Once again, thanks for considering signing up for Pro and SuperPro. There's a 10-day free trial, so if you sign up and don't like what you see, just downgrade back to the free plan ... no hard feelings (though less than 1% of folks have opted for this:-).

Also, a few people have asked me about the auto-renewal of the yearly fee (the memberships are good for one year, so buying now will get you features through most of next season!). In the coming months we are going to build in a little check box that allows you to toggle on / off the recurring payment, so you're in full control. We'll do this well before anybody's automatic renewal comes up in a year, and we'll also email you many times well before the auto-renew kicks in to ensure you know it's coming and allow you to make changes. Trust me, I hate not having control over an auto-renew as much as you do. That said, people tend to be a bit lazy online, and if we don't auto-renew the membership, most people will forget to renew it, so that's why we do the auto-renew. We're not trying to pull a fast one on folks ... just trying to make it easy on us and you while also being transparent.

As usual, shoot me an email with any questions or thoughts...I've probably received 30+ emails in the last two days with praise, suggestions, concerns, etc. I love it. [email protected]

JOEL GRATZ