Colorado Daily Snow

Heads up, there may be fresher snow! Read the latest Colorado Daily Snow

By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 5 years ago December 2, 2018

Recap of free-refill Saturday and look ahead to 7 days of snow

Summary

Saturday offered snow showers with accumulations ranging from just a coating to over 10 inches. Now on Sunday, a storm will first bring snow to the southern mountains, then light snow will push over the central and northern mountains on Sunday night and Monday. We’re not looking big powder days, but conditions should be soft on Sunday and Monday. During the rest of the week, there will be times of light snow followed by a more potent storm on Friday and Saturday.

Short Term Forecast

Recapping Saturday’s powder day

On Saturday, most mountains reported 2-9 inches, and because it was the third day in a row with snow for many areas, snow conditions were soft and super fun.

During the day on Saturday, the combination of adequate moisture, instability (which allows air to rise), incoming storm energy (vorticity), and a moderate wind from the west and northwest allowed intense snow showers to form.

These showers dropped snow at the rate of 2 inches per hour at times, which offered free refills during the day.

As we talked about on Saturday morning, the snow showers on Saturday favored the resorts that were furthest to the west.

Below are the deepest snow reports on Sunday morning, with nearly all of this snow falling during the day on Saturday.

Steamboat: 14” (official summit report), 9” (via the summit cam)
Snowmass: 9”
Vail: 9”
Aspen Highlands: 9”
Monarch: 6”
Telluride: 6”
Aspen Mountain: 5”
Beaver Creek: 5”

On Saturday, the atmosphere was primed to be able to produce these deeper snow amounts due to the factors I mentioned above.

However, because the showers were driven by instability (the same factor that helps to create summertime thunderstorms), the exact location of each area of heavy showers is somewhat random and nearly impossible to predict. In these situations, it’s best to hope for deep amounts like we saw but also keep expectations a little lower in case some of the showers happen not to hit your favorite mountain.

For an example of how the showers can hit one area and not another, look at the two snow stake cam images from Vail. The first is from mid-mountain and the second is from Blue Sky Basin. Both images were taken after the snow stopped accumulating on Saturday.

The mid-mountain stake shows 9 inches while the Blue Sky stake shows 6 inches. That’s a difference of 50%, and the distance between these stakes is only 4.6 miles.

While Saturday's high-resolution weather models showed a good chance for intense showers to move over the Vail area, there was no way to be confident about exactly where these showers would hit, evidenced by the high variability within the ski area itself.

The other top report from Saturday’s snow was at Steamboat, where the summit snow stake showed 9 inches during Saturday (plus 2 inches from Friday night) on the left stake and a storm total well over 20 inches on the right stake.

To wrap up Saturday, it was a day with free refills through the afternoon for many western mountains, and the best powder was during the midday and afternoon and not just first chair.

Storm Sunday and Monday

Yes, it’s another storm. Seems like the norm these days, with storms coming one after the other. What a great pattern we’re in!

On Sunday morning, temperatures are cold (around 0F) in the northern and central mountains, while the southern mountains are a bit warmer and are seeing snow starting up.

The snow on Sunday will favor the southern mountains.

Then on Sunday night, the snow will transition to the central mountains.

On Monday, it’s the central and northern mountains that will see snow.

The snow will linger over the northern mountains on Monday night.

And then we’ll dry out on Tuesday with no snow.

You can see that snow amounts will not be super deeper, but a general 2-8 inches on Sunday and Monday seems like a good ballpark forecast.

Also, great ski conditions occur not just because of the depth of new snow but rather the consistency of snowfall. Since we are seeing fresh snow for many days in a row, the snow conditions will stay soft and super fun. It’s as much as we can ask for!

Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday

Tuesday should be dry and sunny.

Wednesday and Thursday might bring light snow showers, especially over the northern mountains. I don’t think amounts will be deep, but there is a lot of uncertainty in the forecast. Stay tuned.

Friday, Saturday, Sunday

A storm should initially hit the southern mountains on Friday, and then spread snow to the central and northern mountains later Friday into Saturday and Saturday night. This storm might produce low end or moderate powder days on Friday and Saturday. There is still plenty of time to fine-tune the forecast. I do think that we’ll see dry weather on Sunday as the storm departs, though lingering snow showers are possible.

Extended Forecast

Sunday to Tuesday

Still looks dry. A brief break in the train of storms.

Storms resume next Wednesday (December 12)

Thankfully the models are all consistent in showing that snow will return to Colorado starting around December 12th with another storm on its heels. There is no sense in speculating about the details of the 10-day forecast, but good to know that our dry spell should be brief.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Monday, December 3.

JOEL GRATZ

Announcements

 My upcoming presentations about the winter forecast and tips for chasing pow! 

* December 5 in Denver at the Denver Athletic Club in the "Centennial Room". Start time is 600pm and admission is $5 which includes a complimentary beer. Details here.

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

About Our Forecaster

Joel Gratz

Founding Meteorologist

Joel Gratz is the Founding Meteorologist of OpenSnow and has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 2003. Before moving to Colorado, he spent his childhood as a (not very fast) ski racer in eastern Pennsylvania.

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