Summary

My confidence is high that colder air will move into the Colorado mountains on Friday with chilly temperatures persisting through the weekend. I have only low-to-medium confidence in snow accumulations. Most mountains should get at least a coating of snow above about 9,500 feet, and a few spots that get heavier showers could measure a quick 3-6 inches.

Details

The big storm that we’ve been talking about for a week is finally getting close to Colorado. The suspense is killing me:-)

As of Thursday morning, the storm’s cooler air is evident: The states to the west of Colorado are 5 to 20 degrees below normal.

For the rest of Thursday, most Colorado mountains will stay dry, though there will be a few showers that pop up, mostly over the southern and central mountains. Winds will be gusty at 30-50mph on the ridges.

On Thursday late night into the first half of Friday, a line of showers and thunderstorms will move from west-to-east across Colorado. These showers will likely fall as snow initially over about 12,000-13,000 feet, but the snow level could drop to 10,000 feet (ish) as the colder air pushes into Colorado by midday Friday.

Total accumulations from this initial round of snow will be anywhere from a coating to 6 inches. The highest amounts will occur furthest west because the line of showers and storms will weaken and dissipate as it moves east across the state.

Friday night and Saturday morning should be on the drier side with cool temperatures (freezing level about 9,000 feet, and perhaps lower).

On Saturday midday and afternoon, clouds and showers should form over the central and northern mountains with high-elevation snow showers. We could see a coating to 3 inches from these showers.

Sunday will be another chilly day, with additional snow showers likely for the eastern mountains near the continental divide and south into the Sangre de Cristo range.

Next week, our weather should be warmer and drier than what we’ll see this weekend, though I can’t be completely sure of dry weather. A piece of this weekend’s storm is going to hang out to the south of Colorado, and if it meanders back toward our state, we could see a few showers here or there.

Looking far ahead, the next chance of a storm for the western US should occur during the first full week of October (roughly October 3-7th). Stay tuned to see if that means snow here in Colorado.

And looking far, far, far ahead, I just made a video that discusses the long-range snow forecast for this winter in the US. Enjoy!

http://opsw.co/2cUeY8H

Announcement - Heli Ski Event in Denver on October 6

Join me in Denver on Thursday, October 6th to learn more about heli-skiing with Canadian Mountain Holidays (CMH).

I'll talk about my previous trips with CMH, they will show a premiere of their new short film, and free beer and food will be served!

This is always a fun event, so if you're interested in taking a heli ski trip this season or sometime soon, I hope you can make it! Please RSVP here: http://opsw.co/CMHDenverOct62016

Shameless Plug - Consider upgrading to OpenSnow All-Access

If you’re looking for a way to support OpenSnow and get useful additional insight this winter, consider signing up for the All-Access Pass.

This pass gives you access to:

• 10-day forecasts

• Custom alerts to know about upcoming powder days

• Time-lapse webcams for tracking exactly when fresh snow has fallen

• Email delivery of the Colorado Daily Snow as soon as it’s published

All of this costs just $19 for one full year (365 days) and helps to support OpenSnow so that we can spend money and time to further improve our website and mobile apps.

I’d love to count you as an All-Access member!

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

Announcement - New Hiking Weather App!

OpenSummit has arrived!

The app provides hourly forecasts for each 14,000 foot peak in Colorado, including the chance of lightning, precipitation, summit temperature, and summit wind speed.

Also, and I find this super cool, the app shows recent Instagram pictures taken near each mountain. You can quickly see the trail conditions (is there snow?) by looking at these recent pictures.

This is version one of the app, and for now it is exclusively available as an app for iPhone. If you have an iPhone, and you like to hike 14ers, I would be thankful if you would download the app, play with it, and leave a (hopefully positive) review and send us lots of feedback to [email protected].

Download the app here or click the image below: http://opsw.co/OpenSummitapp