There is so much to talk about and so much good news that I am having a hard time organizing my thoughts! Let’s dig in…

Thursday morning powder

After lighter snow during the day on Wednesday, a band of intense snow dropped a quick 3-8 inches on most mountains late Wednesday afternoon and Wednesday night. This means that there will be fresh tracks to enjoy on Thursday morning. Go get it!

How much snow did we receive this week?

Below I listed each mountain’s 24-hour snow report total from Wednesday morning to Thursday morning and then the total snowfall from Saturday night through Thursday morning. You will likely remember this week of skiing for a long, long time. It has been special!

Northern mountains near divide / higher elevation

• Loveland - 13”, 55”
• Abasin - 11”, 51”
• Breckenridge - 9”, 41”
• Copper - 9”, 41”
• Keystone - 6”, 38”
• Eldora - 8”, 32”
• Winter Park - 7”, 22”

Other northern mountains

• Cooper - 5”, 27”
• Beaver Creek - 6”, 22”
• Vail - 2”, 21”
• Ski Granby - 0”, 13”
• Powderhorn - 3”, 12”

North-central mountains

• Aspen Highlands - 7”, 30”
• Snowmass - 7”, 28”
• Aspen Mountain - 5”, 25”
• Buttermilk - 3”, 18”
• Sunlight - 5”, 18”

South-central mountains

• Crested Butte - 8”, 51”
• Monarch - 5”, 35-40” (?)

Southern mountains

• Wolf Creek - 2”, 33”
• Silverton - 6”, 30”
• Purgatory - 1”, 21”
• Telluride - 4”, 19”

When we look at these total numbers carefully, we can learn a lot. The general wind direction during this week’s snow was from the west-southwest, and temperatures were rather warm, and this favored the south-central mountains as well as the northern mountains near the divide (Summit County).

I look at every mountain’s snow report every day and haven’t seen any oddities. Essentially, I trust these numbers as they match with snow stake webcam measurements and other nearby measurements. The only discrepancy I see is actually on the low side as most of Vail skied much deeper than the snowfall that has been reported at mid-mountain and the Blue-Sky Basin snow stake was more representative of conditions on the hill.

Forecast through the weekend

Usually, after we have a big storm, we’ll return to dry weather for a few days. However the atmosphere is unrelenting this month (in a good way) as snow will continue to accumulate in Colorado!

This webcam image is from Crested Butte early on Thursday morning. See the specs in the image? Yes, it’s still snowing. Crazy!

And here is Crested Butte’s 10-day forecast. Chances for snow nearly every day except Tuesday and Wednesday. The 10-day forecast for most mountains looks similar. Can’t stop, won’t stop!

The current weather pattern shows a big trough (area of storminess) just off the California coast. You can see this as the black dip on the water vapor satellite image.

This trough is going to turn into a cut-off storm, which means that it will be cut off from the main west-to-east flow of weather. Cut-off storms move very slowly, so this storm could impact Colorado for at least 5 days (Thursday through Monday).

The model forecast below shows the cut-off storm as a blue area, which sags to the south of Colorado and eventually moves north through eastern Colorado. At the end of the animation, the blue colors moving in from the west (left) show the next storm arriving around January 19th.

Current thinking about the forecast through Monday

I have low confidence in any forecast details. Cut-off storms meander and do their own thing. Models do not forecast them well, and often the storms move more slowly and further south than the models anticipate.

The wind direction during most of the storm (Thursday through Monday) will blow from the south and east. This favors the southern mountains and eastern mountains. Other mountains could see snow flakes, but I think the deepest accumulations will be in the south and east.

The leading edge of this storm will bring snow on Thursday and Thursday night. The snow forecast below, from the CAIC WRF model, shows that snowfall should favor areas that do well when winds blow from the south (not many ski areas and instead the Elk mountains between Crested Butte and Aspen, the Grand Mesa, and the southern Flattops, perhaps some southern mountains but the storm could be too far west to affect them). There could be a band of more intense snow that does bring deeper accumulations to the central and northern resorts, but this is nearly impossible to forecast so I have low confidence if it’ll happen and what mountains will benefit.

I think the best powder days will be in the northern and central mountains on Friday morning (low confidence), and the southern mountains (Purgatory, Silverton, Wolf Creek) on Saturday and more likely Sunday. The eastern mountains (Eldora, Monarch) could do well on Monday.

The forecast from the University of Utah looks great for the southern mountains, but notice the wide range which means we have low confidence in the forecast. The forecast of 20-35 inches is more likely to verify than the forecast of 60+ inches.

After the cut-off storm moves away from Colorado on Monday night, we might see dry weather on Tuesday and Wednesday. I say “might” because the atmosphere has been finding ways to keep the snow machine turned on, so it’s hard for me to have high confidence in a dry forecast.

Most models then agree that a storm or series of storms will bring snow from Thursday through Saturday (January 19-21) and then another storm or series of storms could keep the snow going on the following Monday and Tuesday (January 23-24).

After the 24th, there are some hints in the longer-range outlooks that the final 5-7 days of January could be dry.

That’s a lot for today … thanks for reading and I hope you still have a job and can still feel your legs after all of the skiing you’ve likely done this week!

JOEL GRATZ

Powderchaser Steve is writing “The Chase” which helps you to chase powder across the western US. Check it out here: http://opensnow.com/dailysnow/chase

 

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, Abasin, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass

East of the Divide
Eldora, 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