The Colorado Daily Snow  

And...it's time for more snow! High mountains and a late spring trough means more of the white stuff.

A push of cooler air and moisture will move from north to south across Colorado from about midnight Sunday night through Monday afternoon. There will be a period of steadier snow on the leading edge of the colder air. This will likely hit northern areas overnight into the morning and will pass through I-70 and the central areas from morning through noon. After this period of snow, off and on snow showers will continue through the day and then dissipate by Monday evening.

The northern mountains have a good chance of seeing about six inches of snow. Further south, snow amounts could be the same but accumulations will be a bit more random depending on where the showers fall. The snow level will likely fall to 8,500ft on Sunday night and then lift back up to about 10,000ft on Monday afternoon.

The rest of the week will be warmer and drier...

JOEL GRATZ

As expected today (Friday) is mostly dry across Colorado. 

But that changes on Saturday evening. A cold front will move across the state in the afternoon and evening touching off storms by midday and continuing through Saturday night. The cooler air will stay over the state Sunday and Monday with a few showers both days and some snow on the higher peaks above 10-11k. Tuesday will begin to warm up and then temperatures will get back into the 70s and 80s by later next week. 

In advance of the cold front, a round of severe weather (hail, wind, tornadoes) is possible in extreme northeast CO on Saturday afternoon spreading into southwest Nebraska and western Kansas later in the afternoon and evening. Heads up if you're heading east...

JOEL GRATZ

Lots of slow moving thunderstorms over the state this afternoon (Wednesday). These storms will slowly move east across the divide and plains this evening and exit state right later tonight.

Drier winds from the southwest will cut down the shower activity for Thursday and Friday. In fact, most areas won't see any storms or showers on these two days, with Friday being the drier of the two.

A cold front will move across Colorado Saturday afternoon and evening. Thunderstorms and showers will occur as the front arrives, and then temperatures will become cool (even chilly) from Sunday into Monday and perhaps lasting into Tuesday morning. Then it appears that the mountains will warm up considerably by the middle of next week while the plains could stay a bit cooler for a bit longer, but eventually they'll warm up as well by the later part of next week.

Have fun out there! For you mountain bikers, check out MTBProject.com for a listing of trails. For the climbers that use mountainproject.com to find your routes, MTBProject.com was started by the same team of awesome folks.

JOEL GRATZ

Welcome to summer...what happened to spring? Temperatures will be in the upper 80s on the plains today and the snow is melting fast in the mountains.

Before the snow is gone, though, Chris Davenport and Friends are attempting to ski the centennial peaks of Colorado (the highest 100 mountains). They've done the 14ers, so there are about 46 additional 13ers to ski. Follow their progress on this website...their updates usually offer great pictures and a few paragraphs describing their day. A post from yesterday even has video footage of CDOT's avalanche control work on Independence Pass, which included dynamite dropped from helicopters.

Here's what the weather looks like for the next week or so:

Tuesday: A few afternoon showers.

Wednesday: Many afternoon showers and storms...perhaps a nice squall line moving from west to east across the state in the late afternoon and evening. 

Thursday & Friday: Drier with a much lower chance of an afternoon shower.

Saturday: A cold front will move across the state in the afternoon and evening, likely touching off a good deal of showers and storms. Temperatures will cool overnight.

Sunday: Tough to say at this point as the European model keeps cooler temperatures and showers over the state while the American GFS does not. We'll see. Hopefully we'll see the showers stick around...moisture is a good thing.

Early next week: A likely return to warmer and somewhat drier weather.

Enjoy your time outside!

JOEL

A few reports came in yesterday from Abasin talking about fun cream cheese type snow. It wasn't blower pow, but c'mon, it's mid May, and any pow is fun pow.

Today starts the trend of drier warmer weather, which will last through at least the middle of next week. There will be some afternoon showers over the mountains every day, but nothing substantial or long lasting. Temperatures will warm, especially on Sunday into early next week.

A weak storm or two might cool temperatures during the latter part of next week into next weekend, but this is a long way off, so we'll wait and see about the details.

Enjoy the next few days of fantastic weather and remember - many mountains saw about a foot of snow over the last two days, so it's not your typical springtime snowpack just yet. For more details, check out the CAIC.

JOEL GRATZ

PS - I'll be on the beach at Abasin on Saturday 5/11 ... come say hi! ... I'll be in an OpenSnow hoodie and beanie.