There were two parts to Friday’s storm. The first part on Thursday night into Friday morning was going to target the southern mountains, and the second part during the day on Friday was going to target all mountains.

The first part on Thursday night fizzled and stayed just a bit too far south and east to bring much snow to the southern mountains. The second part on Friday moved through about as expected with bands of intense snow and strong winds gusting to 40-60mph.

Here are the snow totals from Thursday afternoon through Friday night. If there is a range, it either represents an estimate or different measuring sites across the mountain.

Southern Mountains (forecast: 8-16”)
12-14” Wolf Creek
7”        Coal Bank Pass
7”        Purgatory
6”        Telluride
4-7”     Silverton

Central Mountains (Forecast 5-10”)
18”      Irwin Cat Skiing
10”+    Schofield Pass
9”        Snowmass
7”        Crested Butte
6-10”   Aspen Highlands
6”        Aspen Mountain
6-10”   Powderhorn
5"        Cooper
5”        Monarch

Northern Mountains (Forecast 4-8”)
6”        Beaver Creek
5”        Loveland
5”        Steamboat
5-6”     Vail
5”        Winter Park
4”        Breckenridge
4”        Buttermilk
4”        Keystone
3”        Arapahoe Basin
3”        Copper
3”        Eldora

The southern mountains received less snow than I forecast because part one of the storm on Thursday night fizzled. Otherwise, most mountains were in the range that we were hoping for.

Friday’s intense snow and strong winds did close some roads as we expected, so I hope that you were able to get where you wanted to go before or after this happened.

Also on Friday, something happened that I found pretty funny. A friend told me that he was going to chase to Wolf Creek and I happened to spot him on our 24-hour time-lapse cam. What are the odds?!

Now on Saturday morning, we are waking up to temperatures in the low single digits, light winds, and mid-and-high-level clouds covering the sky. Since some of Friday’s snow fell late in the afternoon through the early evening, and since the strong winds persisted through the evening and blew around some of the snow, there should be fun turns and some untracked snow to enjoy. Also on Saturday, there might be a few midday showers over the central and northern mountains, though I doubt we’ll see any accumulation.

Sunday, Monday, and most of Tuesday should be dry with high temperatures in the 20s.

Our next chance for snow should start on Tuesday night and continue through Thursday morning (January 21-23). The latest multi-model ensemble forecast from the University of Utah gives the highest odds of moderate totals, somewhere in the 4-8 inch range, with some outliers of course.

If the storm’s timing holds, the best snow could be Wednesday afternoon or Thursday morning.

Following that system, our next chance for snow should be roughly one week later, sometime between Tuesday, January 28 to Thursday, January 30.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Sunday 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