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 11, 2018

Storm Wednesday evening then looking ahead to Christmas week

Summary

Tuesday morning will bring a few showers to the southern mountains, then the afternoon will be sunnier for the entire state. On Wednesday, expect a fast-moving storm to bring snow from late afternoon through late evening with 3-6 inches for most mountains and the softest turns on Thursday morning’s first chair. After that, we’ll likely need to wait for 7+ days to get back into a stormy pattern.

Short Term Forecast

Powder

I love receiving photos of readers who are skiing powder. Here’s another one from the recent storm cycle, taken on Sunday in Summit County. Please keep sending photos as they will help us to get through the upcoming less-snowy period!

Monday recap

We saw plenty of sunshine on Monday and temperatures rose into the upper 20s to low 30s.

Tuesday

During the morning, most mountains will see clouds and it looks like the only precipitation will fall in the northern part of the southern mountains (Telluride and Silverton). As I write this at 530am, it is snowing lightly at Telluride.

By midday and afternoon, the clouds should push east and we’ll see sunnier skies for the rest of the day.

A 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.

As I said yesterday, 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.

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 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.

* Timing. Snow most intense snow should hit Steamboat first around 12-2pm then to I-70 starting between 2-4pm and then it’ll arrive in the central and southern mountains between 4-6pm.

* Amounts. Most models are showing about 3-6 inches for most northern and central mountains, as well as the northern part of the southern mountains (Telluride and Silverton). This makes sense because the wind direction will be from the northwest, and this favors the northern mountains, some parts of the central mountains, and Telluride and Silverton.

Below is the forecast from the CAIC WRF model, which looks like it’s in the ballpark (not all high-resolution models produce ‘in-the-ballpark’ forecasts all of the time, so I only show them if they look reasonable to me).

* When to ski the best powder. The last run on Wednesday could offer storm skiing (snowing, windy, low visibility) and the first run on Thursday should be the softest with fresh snow underfoot, clearing skies, and chilly temperatures in the single digits to low teens.

Extended Forecast

December 13 - 20

On Thursday, December 13th, we’ll have fresh snow in the morning with clearing skies.

Then through the weekend and most of next week, I do NOT see anything in the models to suggest a significant storm. Maybe we’ll get lucky and something will sneak into Colorado, but odds are low.

Below is the precipitation forecast for December 16-20. Colorado is in the ‘below-average’ category while the northwest sees a great storm cycle that should help to open a lot of terrain in Washington and western Canada.

December 21+

The models are holding firm that our odds for significant snow will increase after about the 21st and mostly during the week of Christmas. As I mentioned yesterday, this timing lines up with our recent 30-ish day storm cycles when we’ve seen more snow during the end of one month and early in the next month.

NOAA’s 8-14 day outlook below begins to include Colorado in the ‘above-average’ category for precipitation as we get closer to Christmas.

Let’s enjoy the Wednesday storm, then relax a bit during a week or so of drier weather, and hope that the storms do come back as advertised later in the month.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Wednesday, December 12.

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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