We’ve seen snow from Saturday night through Wednesday night.

The deepest storm total snowfall is 50 inches at Silverton (southern mountains), including 27 inches in 24 hours on Wednesday.

Below is a photo sent by Silverton.

And a video from Silverton. It's tough riding when you can't see due to one continuous face shot, but someone's gotta do it! (link to video in case you can't see the embed below)

And there are more images that can help to tell the story of Wednesday’s powder.

Sunlight started the day with 12 inches of snow and another few inches fell during the day Wednesday and on Wednesday evening.

Winter Park received more snow than I expected (for a northern mountain) with zero inches on the snow stake at the start of Wednesday and 14 inches by Wednesday at 400pm.

And at Beaver Creek, I see 8-9 inches on the stake on Thursday morning, though a few hours earlier when there was less snow, I noticed that the snow stake was wearing a hat made of snow. That’s something I haven’t seen before!

While the storm brought snow to all mountains on Wednesday with 4-8 inches as an average, the stand-out amounts and deepest powder days were at areas favored by southwest winds (Silverton, Wolf Creek) and areas that were lucky and saw a narrow band of intense snow. For example, Sunlight is only 25 miles west-northwest from the Aspen area but saw much more snow on Wednesday. And the same is true of Winter Park seeing much more snow than surrounding areas. Sometimes it’s just about luck and where the narrow convective bands set up (and not about wind direction).

To look at the storm totals, I find it handy to view the “Snowfall History” tab on the Colorado page on our website: https://opensnow.com/state/co#history

You can view the past 10 days of snow totals in a table view:

In a graph view:

And in a summary view:

Looking ahead

Thursday will be a VERY cold day with high temperatures around or just above 0F. Dress warmly! You’ll likely find soft snow thanks to Wednesday’s storm and a few inches that accumulated after lifts closed on Wednesday afternoon.

Friday and Saturday will be dry and warmer with high temperatures in the 20s. Much more comfortable!

I am still expecting a few waves of snowfall between Saturday night and Tuesday night. Right now amounts look moderate, maybe 4-8 inches, though with the inconsistency in the forecast models, it’s wise to wait a while longer before fine-tuning the details of the forecast. As a placeholder, I’d look forward to Tuesday as potentially the day with the softest snow.

After that, all models continue to point at President’s Weekend as a time for additional snowfall, and like the storm that is just wrapping up, right now it appears that the southern mountains would be favored.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Friday morning.

JOEL GRATZ

I will be on the road (skiing!) through February 8th and while I will try to post every day in the morning as usual, occasionally my posts might be a bit shorter or go live at somewhat different times. Thanks for understanding that I need to get my powder fix as well:-)

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