Colorado Daily Snow

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By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 5 years ago December 8, 2018

Clouds and light snow this weekend

Summary

Moisture will hang tough on Saturday and Sunday, so expect low clouds and light snow over the northern 2/3rds of Colorado through Sunday afternoon. Monday will be dry, then we’ll see a chance for light snow on Tuesday into Wednesday, with a stronger storm on Wednesday night and a powder day likely on Thursday. After that we will have chances for storms through Christmas, but the details are still murky.

Short Term Forecast

Recap of Friday’s conditions

Most of Colorado’s mountains had seen snow for the majority of the previous nine days leading up to Friday, and even though few of those individual days yielded deep amounts, the consistent snowfall kept our snow surface super soft and fun.

At Loveland, Chair 4 opened for the season on Friday!

At Crested Butte, low clouds shrouded the valley and made for gorgeous views. I love skiing and hiking above low clouds and so I love when readers send me these type of photos!

And over at Winter Park, conditions were definitely “soft on soft” as there were 6-7 fresh inches on Friday morning on top of 17 inches that had fallen during the previous seven days.

Saturday and Sunday

The main action across the United States will be a snowstorm over the southern states. The western mountains of North Carolina could see 1-2 FEET of snow.

Here in Colorado, we are in the snow zone (not a technical term) and the atmosphere is finding a way to keep bringing clouds and light snow.

While the overall pattern should push us toward drier weather, enough moisture and storm energy will linger over Colorado this weekend so that the northern 2/3rds of our state will see low clouds and times of light snow, especially from midday Saturday through midday Sunday.

Most models show only a dusting to 2 inches over the northern mountains during this time, but after the surprises from the past week, we’ll see if there are any slightly deeper totals. The punchline – Soft on Soft will continue this weekend for most of the state.

Monday

It looks like we’ll see mostly sunny skies across all of Colorado for the first time in about 10 days. Enjoy the sun and the warmer temperatures.

Tuesday and Wednesday

Expect more clouds and maybe times of light snow from a weak storm moving across the state. Maybe in a day or two we’ll be able to refine the forecast a bit more.

Strong storm Wednesday night, powder Thursday

There is a consensus across all models that a strong storm will quickly move through Colorado from late Wednesday afternoon through Thursday afternoon. Snow amounts during this time could be greater than 6 inches, and the timing means that a powder day on Thursday is very likely.

The only downside to this storm is that it’ll move quickly and it’s a one-and-done event, meaning that we will not have many days of snow leading up to this storm, and thus snow conditions on Thursday might be Soft on Firm rather than Soft on Soft. No matter, we’ll take the snow.

Which mountains will see the most snow on Thursday morning? That’s a bit too early to know. Winds from the northwest and north should favor the northern and central mountains as well as the northern part of the southern mountains (Telluride, Silverton), but that’s just rough estimate at this point. Stay tuned for more details.

Extended Forecast

What happens after the storm on Thursday, December 13th is not clear.

All models show additional storms moving through Colorado out to about the 22nd (the time when the 15-day forecasts end), so I have reasonable confidence that we will see snow following the December 13th storm.

However, there is no consensus across models for the days after the 13th, so rather than speculate about storms on certain days, and then change the forecast on you each day, I’ll avoid any details for now and we’ll see if and when consensus develops across models.

For those of you reading with a close eye on what will happen later in December around the Christmas and New Years holidays, all I can say is that most of Colorado will have a healthy snowpack with lots or all of our terrain open. When it comes to individual storms that far out (17+ days away), nobody knows.

Love our new website and apps? Hate our new website and apps?

I’ve received a number of emails over the past 24 hours.

Some people love the new look and features. In this case, I am glad you like it. We spent months figuring out what we wanted. The redesign wasn’t just about making things different and/or easier on the eyes. It was about adding features (compare the 10-day forecast across mountains in one view without clicking, the 3-day hourly forecast for each mountain in the US, favorite cams, lots of maps, ability to sort lists by total snow) and making sure that ALL features are available across our desktop website, mobile website, and mobile app.

Some people hate the new look and features. I understand that things look different, and maybe we got a few things wrong. My request is for you to send me detailed feedback rather than ‘I hate the new website!’. We built OpenSnow to help me and you find the best snow, so if you have ideas about how to improve what we do, I’m all ears! But simply saying that the old site was great and the new site is terrible does not provide us any direction about what you’d like to see.

Here are articles that we wrote that compare the old site and the new site:

* About our new website

* About our new mobile app

If you fall into the camp of hating the new website or app, my request is for you to take a few days or a week to play with the new products, and then send me feedback ([email protected]) about what you’d like to see changed. And remember, the previous website was built over 5 years of tweaking and improving, and the new website and app will continue to improve over the coming months and years.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Sunday, December 9.

JOEL GRATZ

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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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