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 10, 2018

Snow returns midweek

Summary

Monday will be dry, Tuesday will offer showers, then a stronger storm should bring 3-6 inches to many mountains starting Wednesday afternoon and ending on Thursday morning. After that, stronger storms may elude us for about one week, then models are converging on a better chance for storms starting on or just after December 21st.

Short Term Forecast

Recap of Sunday’s powder at Breckenridge and Copper

On Sunday morning, most northern mountains reported that 1-3 inches of snow fell on Saturday night. So we were expecting another morning with soft conditions and a few inches of fresh with snow showers ending.

Well, those snow showers did end by mid-morning, but not before delivering another 1-2 inches of snow to most northern mountains, and a stronger cell happened to track over Copper and Breckenridge and it brought a quick 4+ inches of fluffy powder.

Again, these amounts might seem mundane (a few inches here, a few inches there), but when you put them together, they add up to fluffy freshies on top of a super soft base. And here’s photographic proof!

Monday

We’ll start the week with sunny skies and temperatures rising into the upper 20s and low 30s.

Tuesday

A weak storm should bring snow showers to most mountains through the day. Snow amounts will be light, maybe just a few flakes to an inch or two if we’re lucky.

Storm still on track for late Wednesday

There are no big changes to the forecast. Expect a dry morning on Wednesday, with a shot of intense snow arriving sometime during the mid-afternoon or early evening.

When the intense snow hits, the combination of snowfall rates of 1”+ per hour and strong wind may lower visibility enough to close some roads for a few hours, especially in the northern mountains. I’ll try to nail down the timing of the snow in the next day or so.

While this storm will have strong energy, it will move through quickly and it’ll lack moisture, which will limit accumulations. Also, because we will have seen dry weather or just very light snow in the two days leading up to the storm, conditions on Thursday morning will likely be ‘Soft on Firm(er)’ with new snow on top of a slightly firmer base (north-facing runs should still be plenty soft).

* Timing. The last run on Wednesday could offer some powder or storm-skiing conditions. Then the first run on Thursday will offer a fresh inches of fresh snow.

* Amounts. Most models are showing about 3-6 inches for the northern and central mountains, and maybe the northern part of the southern mountains.

The forecast for Cameron Pass in the northern mountains ranges from 4-10 inches.

The forecast for McClure Pass in the central mountains ranges from 1-5 inches.

And the forecast for Red Mountain Pass in the northern part of the southern mountains ranges from 0-5 inches.

Again, expect intense snow for a bit on Wednesday afternoon or evening, with some freshies to enjoy on Thursday morning.

Extended Forecast

Thursday and Friday, December 13-14, should be dry.

During the weekend and next week (December 15-21), we might see some snow from weaker storms, but nothing in the models is confidently pointing to a significant system hitting Colorado.

Chasing powder

If you want to keep tabs on the best locations to chase powder around the US and Canada, check out the Chase Daily Snow forecast with Powderchaser Steve. He will literally drive through the entire night to chase powder, and his write-ups will help you get to the right spot as well. More here: https://opensnow.com/dailysnow/chase Another great chasing resource is our Top Forecasts map, where you can see where the most snow is falling across the globe: https://opensnow.com/explore/powder

Next storm cycle

Looking ahead, there is now a modest model consensus that we should see a better chance for more significant storms during a period beginning around December 21st (ish) and lasting for at least one week. Below is the weather pattern forecast for December 21st, showing a favorable blue color (stormier, colder weather) nudging into Colorado.

If we do start to see storm chances increase during the last 10 days of December, this would line up with previous months, which have shown a roughly 30-day cycle of active weather, peaking from late one month through early the next month.

The text below is copied from yesterday…


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

I’ve received a number of emails over the past 3 days.

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 (10-day forecast in one view, 3-day hourly forecasts for US mountains, 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 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 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 Tuesday, December 11.

JOEL GRATZ

Announcements

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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