There is a glimmer of hope. It's just a dull light, so don't use this as an excuse to take a shot of whiskey before 11am (I'm not judging, though). Please remember that I HATE longer-term forecasts because they can't predict the details of each storm and therefore they can't predict the powder. That said, there's not much to talk about in the short term, so let's stare into the future and see what we can find...

The big story will be a series of storms that hit the west coast (from Tahoe north to Oregon and Washington) and then head east-northeast toward Idaho, Wyoming, and Montana. These multiple storms will hit between Wednesday and Sunday but will be on the warmer side with higher snow levels. By Sunday night, somewhat colder air pushes in on the backside of the storm to make lighter, fluffier snow.

So what does this mean for Colorado? We will be grazed by the storms but the only effect will be more clouds and a few flurries or light snow showers in the very northern mountains. The first storm to graze us will arrive Thursday night and the second and slightly stronger storm will arrive Friday night. Again, expect more clouds but basically no snow.

The last in the series of west-coast storms will be stronger, colder, and a bit further south, and this likely means snow for the northern 2/3rds of Colorado on Monday-ish. It's still a bit too early to pin down the exact timing or amounts, but the models are somewhat consistent with this storm hitting Colorado, so I'll jump on the band wagon. At this point I wouldn't expect much more than a 2-4 inch event, but maybe if we get lucky there could be talk of six inches (that's what she said? c'mon, we need to have a little fun during this dry weather!).

The American GFS model is trending toward more active weather around the 10th of December but I have very little confidence in this. At least there's hope, so keep doing your snow dances.

If you're looking for powder between now and then, likely best to head north and west. All the areas I mentioned above could be good on Sunday/Monday after a few days of heavier, wetter snow is followed by ~12 hours of lighter, fluffier snow. Remember that we have 3-4 day snow forecasts for each individual resort in the country, so add a few to your favorites list and compare which ones will have more snow!

A few people have been asking for a graph comparing this year to previous years, and I found a good one from the SNOTEL network (a group of backcountry weather stations that automatically measure snow). We're way below average and below where we were the last few years. For reference, "WY2013" means Water Year 2013, which is this season. The primary purpose of the SNOTEL sites is to measure the amount of water content that's locked up in the snowpack so we can predict water flow rates for the following summer. That's why the data is in Water Year terminology.

JOEL