Photos!

From Silverton on Friday. Tough to beat fresh snow and big mountains!

From Beaver Creek on Saturday. The fluff factor was in the full effect!

The Pattern

We are in an active pattern and snow has fallen nearly every day of the past week and snow could fall every day of the next 7-10 days. Let the good times roll!

Recap of Sunday & Sunday Night

Light snow fell on Sunday morning over the northern and central mountains, then we saw afternoon showers pop up across the state with snow becoming steadier on Sunday night over the southern and eastern mountains. Below are the snow totals from Sunday night into Monday morning.

* Wolf Creek: 10”
* Purgatory: 3”
* Silverton: 3”
* Crested Butte: 2”
* Eldora: 2”
* Powderhorn: 2”
* Ski Cooper: 2”

Southern Storm for Monday & Tuesday

You can see the center of the storm swirling to the southwest of Colorado with the center of counter-clockwise circulation over northwestern Arizona.

This slow-moving system will bring snow to Colorado through Tuesday night.

* The first wave of snow will hit later Monday through Tuesday morning. This wave will favor the southern mountains due to the southerly winds, and a few other areas could get lucky; even though the wind direction isn’t favorable, stronger cells or lines of precipitation could happen to hit certain mountains.

* The second wave of snow will hit later Tuesday into Tuesday evening as the storm crosses Colorado and winds switch to blow from the west and northwest.

* Total snowfall from Monday morning through Wednesday morning looks like:

- 1-4 inches for most areas

- 3-6 inches at Crested Butte and Monarch (higher-resolution models indicate they get lucky on Monday night)

- 6-12 inches at Telluride and Silverton in the southern mountains

- 8-20+ inches at Purgatory and Wolf Creek where southerly winds are the best direction

Wednesday

This will be the driest day of the week across the state. Showers should be wrapping up in the morning, then the next storm could start the snow going again later in the day.

Southern Storm Thursday, Friday, Saturday AM

This system will once again favor the southern part of the southern mountains due to the wind direction from the south (how many times can I use “south” in a sentence?!).

Snow should ramp up in the south later Thursday and continue through Friday night where there could be another 12-24 inches.

For all other mountains, the best chance for snow will be from Friday midday through Saturday morning when the storm’s energy crosses the state and the wind direction switches to the west and northwest. I think 4-8 inches is a good initial estimate for snow totals outside of the southern part of the southern mountains.

This storm is still three to five days away, so my confidence in the forecast is only medium and I expect some things to change.

Below is the storm total snowfall from Monday through Friday from the new version of the American GFS model. The exact placement of the snow amounts likely will shift somewhat, so focus on the general story which is the deepest snow falling in the south.

We might see drier weather later on Saturday, then the next chance for snow should be from February 24-27 as some energy and moisture will likely move through the northern and central mountains in multiple waves.

Then after the possibility of drier weather around February 28 through the first few days of March, we could see another storm or storms starting sometime in the March 3-5 timeframe.

The consistent snow that we’ve seen during the last week and what we’re going to see in the next 1-2 weeks is about as good as it gets and I hope you’re getting out to enjoy it!

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Tuesday morning.

JOEL GRATZ

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