It's the start of day #2 for me in British Columbia, so apologies for the shorter discussions this week...the internet is a bit slow. Here's a recap of day #1 with CMH.

There will be two storms this week with the first hitting Monday (today) and Monday night and the second coming through a bit slower from Wednesday night through Friday morning. Both storms should produce about 4-8" for many areas, so neither are big storms but both will refresh the slopes this week.

The first storm moves in today with winds from the southwest, eventually switching around from the west by late afternoon and Monday evening. Everything with this storm - wind speeds, storm energy (vorticity), moisture - is fine, but not amazing. So we'll see good snow today in areas that are favored by southwest winds (southern San Juans, southern Elk Mountains), and then areas favored by west and northwest winds will see better snow tonight (Aspen and I-70 northward). The last few turns today or the first few turns on Tuesday (Christmas morning) will likely be the softest and deepest.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be generally dry, but then snow will start again on Wednesday night. The Wednesday night storm will be similar to tonight's Christmas Eve storm as the the first part will favor the southern mountains and the second part will favor the northern sections. Look for snow to start in the south on Wednesday night and get heavier in the north by Thursday. I think snow showers are going to persist on Thursday, Thursday night, and Friday as there is some moisture left over in the westerly winds, but overall I'm not expecting more than a few inches on the tail end of this storm from Thursday afternoon through Friday.

After the storms this week, the storm track is going to change again, likely favoring the northern sections of the Rockies and the providing cold air to much of the eastern 1/2 or 1/3rd of the country. It's still unclear what this could mean for Colorado, but it does look like the northern half of the state could still get clipped with good snow from passing storms, and a cut-off storm (one that breaks away from the main west-to-east flow of weather) could meander from the south and bring snow to the San Juans. So if you're reading between the lines, you know that I don't really know what will happen next weekend and into early 2013, but it will be a change from what we've seen over the last three weeks.

Enjoy the snow!

JOEL GRATZ