Stoke!

This picture comes with the usual disclaimer – make sure you know what you’re doing in the backcountry, or take classes and/or start learning from people with a lot more skill, knowledge, and experience.

Wednesday

As expected, we saw showers on Tuesday through Tuesday night, with the steadiest snow on Tuesday evening. The 24-hour snow reports as of Wednesday morning show 1-3 inches across the state.

Winter Park: 3”
Keystone: 2”
Loveland: 2”
Steamboat: 2”
Others: 1”

The snow above is on top of the dusting to 1 inch that fell on Monday night, so totals are in the 1-4 inch range so far. These aren’t big snow amounts, though it’s nice to add up the totals to see if the forecast is working out, and it seems like we're in the ballpark as there will be a little more snow to come and we were looking for total accumulations of 3-6 from this weak and warm storm.

On Wednesday morning, radar shows additional showers over southern and central Colorado, and also showers to our west in Utah, which will head east into Colorado through the day.

During the day on Wednesday and on Wednesday night, I am expecting another 1-3 inches of snow, with the best chance for these numbers in the southern and central mountains and around Steamboat. The graphic below is the CAIC WRF 2km forecast model.

Thursday & Friday

No change to the forecast. We’ll be in between storm systems, so expect lingering clouds on Thursday morning giving way to dry weather and sunshine. Friday should also be a dry day through there could be a few afternoon showers. Temperatures will be warm with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s.

Saturday & Sunday

I think I became a little too excited yesterday about the possibility of steady snow on Saturday night. Looking at all of the latest models, we should see snow showers on Saturday afternoon, though accumulations will likely be in the dusting to 3-inch range, so not a big system. Outside of this, much of Saturday and Sunday will be dry.

We’ve been watching the period from April 10-15 for a potentially stronger and colder storm, or multiple storms, and it does look like confidence is growing in the chance for a stronger storm on the front side of this date range.

The multi-model average forecast shows a good chance for intense snow somewhere around the central and northern mountains on Wednesday, April 10 and/or Thursday, April 11.

Keep your eye on April 10-11 for deeper powder potential.

After that, it’s possible that we’ll see another system around April 14-15, but that’s still too far out to bring much confidence to the forecast.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Thursday 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