Colorado Daily Snow

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By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 4 years ago April 1, 2019

Three storms through mid-April

Summary

On Sunday, the southern mountains received 4-9 inches of snow through the day. Today, Monday should be dry, then we’ll see a few inches of snow on Tuesday and Wednesday, another few inches on Saturday and Sunday, and then a colder and stronger storm could arrive sometime between April 10-15.

Short Term Forecast

It’s Monday, April 1st, which means that it’s the day for April fools’ jokes. I like having fun, but I’ve always resisted the urge to make a fake forecast on April 1st because I don’t want to cause any confusion. So, what you’re about the read is the real deal with no jokes:-)

Sunday Recap

As expected, we saw snow in the southern mountains through the day on Sunday. I was expecting 3-6 inches on average with up to 10 inches if things came together perfectly. I’m happy to see that things came together very well and we generally hit the high side of the forecast range.

Wolf Creek: 9”
Telluride: 9”
Purgatory: 7”
Silverton: 4-8” (estimate)

Elsewhere on Sunday, showers dropped an inch of snow on mountains close to the continental divide, around Berthoud Pass, Breckenridge, Crested Butte, and Monarch.

Monday

We should see mostly dry weather as we’ll be in between storm systems. Sunday’s southern storm is now to the southeast of Colorado.

If there will be any weather to speak of, it’ll be a few clouds and showers mostly over the far northern mountains.

Tuesday & Wednesday

We will see snow showers during these days with the best chance for accumulating snow between Tuesday afternoon and Wednesday night.

The storm will be weak and not very cold, so I am only expecting 1-4 inches on average with maybe up to 6-8 inches for a few spots that see a more intense shower. The rain/snow level will likely be between 7,000-8,000 feet, which means that most mountains will see mostly snow, though a few base areas could see raindrops during times of lighter precipitation.

Thursday & Friday

We’ll be in between storm systems, so expect dry weather with some mid-and-high-level clouds filtering the sunshine. Temperatures will be warm with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s.

Extended Forecast

The next storm will again be weak and not very cold, with light snow possible on Saturday and Sunday.

Then I am still looking forward to a potentially stronger storm sometime between April 10-15. The models are split about whether the main storm will be on the earlier or later side of this five-day window, so I can’t offer any more details relating to the storm’s timing at this point.

When we put all of these systems together, chances are reasonably high that we’ll see double-digit snowfall amounts over the next 10-15 days.

The trick, though, is that since we’ll see warm temperatures most days, with soft snow in the afternoon followed by an overnight freeze and firm snow in the morning, to get a big powder day with a soft base, we’ll need to see a stronger storm with multiple days of significant snow, rather than just weaker storms with a few inches. We’ll see if we can pull that off, especially with the storm around April 10-15.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Tuesday morning.

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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