On Saturday, a band of intense snow moved from south-to-north, first hitting the southern mountains in the morning with 3-8 inches, and it then moved north and brought 1-2 inches to most other mountains during Saturday late afternoon and evening.

The highest snow reports were in the southern mountains. The first number is the 24 hour stretch from Saturday morning through Sunday morning, and the second number is the 48 hour total from Friday morning through Sunday morning.

• Silverton - 8” (16”)
• Purgatory - 6” (11”)
• Telluride - 5” (10”)
• Wolf Creek - 3” (10”)
• Crested Butte - 3” (6”)
• Most other areas 1-3 inches

Now on Sunday morning, the slow-moving storm is centered just south of New Mexico and is pumping a LOT of moisture, rain, and snow northward into New Mexico.

This storm will slowly move to the north and east on Sunday and Monday, and this motion should push snow back into Colorado. I think the steadiest snow will occur from late Sunday evening through midday Monday and the best accumulations of 5+ inches will favor eastern areas like Wolf Creek, Monarch, Eldora, and Echo (which just reopened!). Other mountains should also see some flakes, perhaps accumulating to 1-3 inches.

The CAIC WRF 4km snow forecast through Monday afternoon shows how the storm will favor the eastern mountains, with the lower elevations around Denver and to the south and east also getting snow.

Slow-moving storms, like the one on Sunday and Monday, usually offer many surprises because they can wobble and meander rather than move in a straight line. We can confident that there will be fresh snow on Monday for most mountains, though expect some differences between the forecast and real life when it comes to snow amounts.

Following the slow-moving storm, we should see a three-day stretch of dry weather on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Snow could fall during most of the 5-10 day time period, but of course, it’s hard to forecast the specific timing or snow amounts that far into the future.

Below is the Canadian ensemble model (via Tropicaltidbits.com), which is the average of 20 slightly different versions of the Canadian model. Blue colors show stormier weather. Early in the forecast, you can see the slow-moving storm push away from Colorado, then red colors when we have dry weather during the middle of the week, then a storm on Fri/Sat/Sun, and the second storm around Tue/Wed, January 24-25.

The first storm on Fri/Sat/Sun should favor the southern mountains. This storm may move too far to the south to bring significant snow to Colorado and the most intense snow could hit New Mexico. No matter, we can’t argue with a refresh of snow.

The second wave on Tue/Wed (Jan 24-25) could drop snow more equally on all mountains and could be a nice event with a few days of snow with one or two being solid powder days. This is 10 days into the future so it’s not worthwhile to debate the details any further because the models will change many times.

Thanks for reading and have a great last day of the weekend!

JOEL GRATZ

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