Sunday was a beautiful day, and Monday will be another sunny and warm day. The sunrise over Loveland ski area in the northern mountains shows a few high, thin clouds and a few lower, thicker cumulus clouds.

Both Monday and Tuesday will have high temperatures in the 40s, and we might touch the low 50s on Tuesday if we get enough sunshine to warm us to our potential.

The storm on Wednesday and Thursday is getting into the range of the higher-resolution models (which go out 60-84 hours) so we are starting to be able to see a few more details.

It looks like we’ll see showers on Tuesday night, then the steadier precipitation should start on Wednesday morning and the snow will continue through Thursday.

The majority of the storm will bring a wind direction from the northwest, or even from the north, and these directions are OK for most mountains, likely favoring areas near the northern continental divide and also around the north side of the southern mountains (Telluride is closed for the season, but Silverton is open).

I do not see a reason to change my earlier thinking about accumulations. An average across the state will likely be 5-10 inches, and up to 15 inches is possible for a few of the favored spots.

For snow quality, Wednesday will start with a few inches on hardpack/crust, but we should get softer through the day with good turns closer to the end of the day. Since snow should continue on Wednesday night into Thursday morning, I think the best turns of the storm will be on Thursday morning. Temperatures will be cold enough to make the snow reasonably fluffy, though the snow likely will be just on the thicker side of average. That's fine with me – it's April after all!

When I looked at the longer-range models this morning, I was amazed to see that there will be chances for snow in Colorado near every day of the next 10-15 days. This does NOT mean that every day will be a powder day, or that every day will be very cold, but it will be an active pattern coming up.

The charts below show the chances for snow across the northern, central, and southern mountains during the next 15 days.

The best chance for snow will be from the upcoming storm on April 10-11. After that, we should see some snow over the weekend of April 13-14 with deeper accumulations in the southern mountains. And beyond, there is a pretty good chance for more snow early and mid next week, with more snow past April 20th. Again, this doesn’t mean that we’ll see a lot of deep powder days (although more are possible), I am just trying to highlight that this will be an active 7-10 day stretch.

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