Summary:

• Dry and warmer through the weekend
• Maybe some light snow late Sunday & Monday in northern Colorado
• No clue what's going to happen with out potential storm for mid next week

 

Details:

Temperatures warmed quite a bit yesterday as most of the new snow that fell over northern Colorado turned into "surfy" snow, otherwise known as a combination of heavy, playful, and mashed potatoes. Also, some areas (definitely not all) of northern Colorado saw a bit of freezing rain on Tuesday night at the tail end of the storm and this put down a layer or ice on top of the snow. For resort skiing none of this will matter too much as skiers will chop things up and groomers will do their thing. This will be problematic for the backcountry, most likely, for days or weeks to come. Check in with CAIC if you're heading out.

After the snowfall from Sunday through Tuesday, most of northern Colorado is showing above-average SWE (snow-water equivalent, or what you'd measure if you melted the snow on the ground). Good news for the north, not great news for southern Colorado. We need a big storm or two in the south to catch up.

Coming up...

Temperatures will be near or above freezing around 10,000ft for at least the next few days, so it'll be warmer than it has been. Expect dry weather with partly to mostly sunny skies Thursday, Friday, and Saturday.

From Sunday through next week, I really have no idea what's going to happen. The models are all over the place. We might see a few inches of snow along and north of I-70 Sunday night into Monday, and then the storm slated for the middle of next week is kinda up in the air. The European model weakens this storm to the point where we see almost no snow. The American GFS model points toward a warm and wet system for Wednesday and Thursday with lots of precipitation in southern Colorado. Other models are in between. So really, no clue. I can say with some certainty that next week looks relatively warm for most areas (mountain highs in the ~30s), so a big difference from skiing in northern Colorado earlier this week with temperatures in the single digits.

JOEL GRATZ