The snow on Thursday afternoon and Thursday night moved into the northern mountains about as expected. Here are the 24-hour snow reports from Thursday morning through Friday morning.

Arapahoe Basin - 4"
Keystone - 4"
Winter Park - 4"
Copper Mountain - 3"
Vail - 3"
Breckenridge - 2"
Loveland - 2"
Steamboat - 2"
Beaver Creek - 1"

The snowfall was concentrated in the northern mountains, with the highest amounts (Arapahoe Basin, Keystone, Winter Park) located close to or along the divide. Here is a direct link to our Colorado Powder Finder map (http://opensnow.com/powder?count=now&filter=s-CO) which looks like this:

Snow stake cameras show that Thursday night's snow should be light and fluffy, so I bet you'll enjoy a few soft turns in spots on Friday morning. Please post pictures in the comments or email them to me at [email protected] and let me know if I can share them.

Also, I noticed that the additional snow is helping Winter Park open a bit more terrain, and Keystone is opening a rather significant chunk including 200 acres of groomed runs and 300 acres of hike-to-terrain: http://blog.keystoneresort.com/snow-report/terrain-expansion-2017-18/

I can't stay on top of every mountain's terrain openings because some are good about publicizing in advance while others just drop the ropes and you need to be there to know! I'll do what I can to mention major terrain openings when I see them.

For the rest of Friday, expect any clouds in the northern mountains to clear and we should see mostly sunny skies with warmer temperatures (highs in the 20s and low 30s).

It'll be mostly dry through at least next Saturday, December 16th. We might see a very weak system around the 14th, but I doubt it'll bring much or any snow. Then our next chance for a decent storm is sometime on or around December 17th.

Here are the details...

The current water vapor satellite image shows this storm track. I highlighted Colorado with the blue dot.

You can see how the storm track goes way north into Canada and then drops south, near Colorado, and then shoots out toward the southeast and east coast. The snow we received on Wednesday and Thursday was due to a few systems skirting northeast Colorado as they moved along this storm track.

Looking ahead, the outlook for most of next week is for that storm track to shift east just a bit, which will lead to warm weather here in Colorado and continued cold weather in the east.

On or around Sunday, December 17th, it appears that the weather pattern will flatten a bit with a more west-to-east flow (rather than storms going way north into Canada and then straight south into the US). This more west-to-east flow will favor the northern Rockies and western Canada and MIGHT drop far enough south to bring some snow to Colorado.

The 13-day forecast, taking us out to Thursday, December 21st, shows another system moving through the northern Rockies and POTENTIALLY coming far enough south to bring snow to Colorado.

I do NOT have much confidence in the details of the forecast beyond 10 days, so both the potential storms on the 17th and 21st are just that – possibilities. Don't bet on them just yet.

I do have reasonable confidence that the weather pattern will continue to flatten into a more west-to-east flow after the system on December 17th, but I do not know if this change will bring significant storms to Colorado or if most of the action will stay just to our north and northwest.

I'll keep you updated, and thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

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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