Colorado Daily Snow

Heads up, there may be fresher snow! Read the latest Colorado Daily Snow

By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 7 years ago May 5, 2016

Sunny Thursday, stormy from Saturday through Monday

Good Thursday morning!

Tuesday and Wednesday were great days and Thursday will be our third sunny and spring-like day in a row. I spoke with a gentleman last night who has been skiing Abasin and he mentioned that the snow on Tuesday didn’t soften until about 1pm due to a cool breeze, but then on Wednesday the snow softened right on schedule around 11am under a fully sunny sky with little to no wind. I would expect that Thursday will be similar to Wednesday with the snow softening during the late morning.

Since we’re now in full-on spring skiing mode, the goal that most of us share is to find soft corn snow during the late morning and early afternoon. Of course we can still get legitimate powder days well into May, so when I’m forecasting I pay attention to the chances for both spring corn and spring powder.

During the next seven days we’re going to see a bit of everything. A few days will be dry with a good chance of soft corn, some days will be snowy with a chance for powder, and some days will be in between with a harder snow surface.

The current weather setup now on Thursday morning is that a large storm is swirling just to the west of California.

Source: WeatherTap.com

 

Like the last four or five storms that we’ve seen track toward Colorado from the southwest, this storm will move slowly and will be with us for many days once is arrives.

Before its arrival, though, Thursday should be a beautiful day with some thin cirrus clouds and warm temperatures. Snow should soften by mid morning and it will be a great day to enjoy soft turns.

On Friday, the storm still will be well to our west, but we could see a few showers especially between about 3am and 10am on Friday. These showers likely won’t offer much accumulating rain or snow, and the majority of Friday should be at least partly sunny. A strong wind will develop by midday and afternoon with gusts up to 30mph in the central and northern mountains and up to 50mph in the southern mountains. I do think that temperatures will be warm enough on Friday to soften the snow by midday, but due to the wind and potential cloud cover this softening may be pushed back from its normal time of late morning and instead may occur closer to midday and early afternoon.

On Saturday, the storm will move over Colorado so it should be a cooler day. Temperatures will stay rather warm, so the best snow accumulation should stay near and above 10,000 feet with snow flakes falling down to 9,000 feet at times. I think the best chance of snow will occur between 12-noon on Saturday and 12-midnight on Saturday night. The detailed snow forecast on OpenSnow is now being produced by the European weather model, and it’s showing 1-2 inches on Saturday and 1-2 inches on Saturday night for many areas of the northern mountains. This forecast seems right, however since most of the snow will fall in bursts rather than a lengthy period of steady precipitation, there could easily be a quick 3-6 inches of accumulation if a stronger snow shower hits a particular mountain.

Sunday should offer a brief break in the snow during the morning, but then the northern and central mountains will likely experience a period of steady rain and snow between Sunday late afternoon and Monday afternoon. The snow level could drop about 1,000 feet during this time, meaning that flakes could fall down to about 8,000 feet and accumulating snow may get down to 9,000 feet. Again, the European weather model is showing 1-2 inches on Sunday afternoon, 1-2 inches on Sunday night, and 1-2 inches on Monday. Adding this up to 3-6 inches during this 24 hour period sounds about right, and I think there is some upside potential to those numbers.

From Monday night through Wednesday, the steady precipitation should be over but we will continue to see clouds, showers, and cooler weather over the northern and perhaps central mountains. We may need to wait until Thursday to return to sunny and warm weather.

While we do license the data from the European model to make our forecasts, we cannot show the images from this model. Instead, below I am showing the Canadian model’s forecast, which looks similar to the European model. This first map shows the precipitation forecast though mid next week, and I interpret this to mean that there’s a good chance of about 1 inch of precipitation for the northern mountains.

Source: WeatherBell.com

 

Relating this to snowfall, the Canadian model shows up to 6 inches in the southern mountains and 6-12 inches in the northern mountains. These numbers feel reasonable to me.

Source: WeatherBell.com

 

The best time to find powder will likely be in the northern mountains on Sunday morning as well as Monday morning and midday. Closing day at Mary Jane is this Saturday, Loveland’s closing day is this Sunday, and Abasin should be open through June.

The best time to enjoy corn will be on Thursday and Friday, and then we’ll likely need to wait until the middle or end of next week for the temperatures to warm up. The southern mountains are not going to see as much precipitation from this system, so temperatures should be warmer with a decent chance of corn returning early next week. 

Thanks for continuing to read my weather ramblings and I’ll continue to write daily notes through this storm.

JOEL GRATZ

 

PS - For the 150+ people that came out to the State of the River event on Thursday night in Silverthorne, thank you! I enjoyed having the opportunity to speak and to meet many other folks who love weather, powder, and of course the water that results from our snowpack.

 

Geography Key

Northern Mountains
Steamboat, Granby, Beaver Creek, Vail, Ski Cooper, Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, Loveland, Abasin, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass, Rocky Mountain National Park, Cameron Pass

Along the Divide
Loveland, Abasin, 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, Durango, Wolf Creek (Telluride and Silverton are on the northern side of the southern mountains)

About Our Forecaster

Joel Gratz

Founding Meteorologist

Joel Gratz is the Founding Meteorologist of OpenSnow and has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 2003. Before moving to Colorado, he spent his childhood as a (not very fast) ski racer in eastern Pennsylvania.

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