In my previous post, I asked folks to send me snowy pictures from the mountains, and you delivered! Here are a few of the best...

Thanks for the stoke, and let's keep it going! Even though I do not see big storms in our immediate future, we can stay excited by looking at awesome shots from past storms (even storms from prior years), so please send photos to [email protected]. Thanks!

Storm #11 on Thursday afternoon

As we have talked about for a few days, the next storm will arrive on Thursday. Snow should begin on Thursday midday/afternoon and wrap up by Thursday late evening.

The brunt of the storm will slide from north-to-south along the eastern slopes of the mountains. That's why I titled this post the "east-side slider". This is NOT a storm track that brings a lot of snow to most mountains. Rather, most of the snow will fall east of the divide.

An area favored by this storm is the foothills that are east of the higher mountains of the divide and west of the Denver metro area. This area should get 3-6 inches of snow on Thursday afternoon and evening.

One mountain in this area is Echo. The following forecast data is for Echo Mountain.

At the bottom of the chart, the green bars show the average snow forecast across 51 versions of the European model.

The average snow forecast is about 3 inches, but this model only has a resolution of about 8.5 miles. That means that the model thinks that each square area of 8.5 x 8.5 miles has the same elevation.

In reality, we know that our terrain in Colorado is more complex than a flat surface measuring 8.5 x 8.5 miles. Because the model does not 'understand' our terrain, it can underestimate snowfall at times. This is why I think that, for some foothills locations, 3 inches is the low end and we might get closer to 6 fluffy inches in a few spots.

After the storm leaves on Thursday night, I do not see any other significant storms through the rest of October. There is a low-ish chance that another storm will skirt northern or eastern Colorado, but again, I don't think a storm like that would be significant.

Not to worry ... October snowfall has little or no correlation with snowfall during the rest of the season, so enjoy the hiking and mountains biking now ... the pow will come soon enough!

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

Colorado Forecast Page → https://opensnow.com/state/co

Ski Town Survey

If you are living or have lived in a ski town, take a few minutes to peruse the results of this survey and add your own thoughts:

Take the survey: https://skiresortjobs.org/ski-resort-employee-survey-1/

See the results so far: https://skiresortjobs.org/exit-interview-results/

Next Talk

I'll be giving a talk at Bentgate Mountaineering in Golden on Nov 8th. See you there!

https://www.facebook.com/events/1209665705844183/

Fundraiser

If you are in or near Buena Vista, there is a fundraiser on November 11th to raise money to bring the BV Special Education class skiing at the Breckenridge Outdoor Education Center. The event includes a movie and raffle. More info here:

http://thelariatbv.com/event/ski-movie-premiere-fundraiser/

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, Echo, 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