There will be 19 trails open on Tuesday, and this is mostly thanks to the hard working snowmaking crew that has taken advantage of recent cold temperatures. Our natural snowfall is about 60% of average, and we will not improve that number on Tuesday or Wednesday as we'll continue to see beautiful blue skies and comfortable temperatures with morning readings in the teens and rising into the 30s during the afternoon.

We will have two chances for snow during the next few days, and even though both systems appear rather weak, any flakes are good flakes! The first chance for snow will be on Wednesday night into Thursday morning when we could see a coating to three inches. The second chance for snow will be on Saturday afternoon through Sunday morning when we could again see a coating to three inches. If you want to ski a bit of fresh snow, keep your eye on Thursday morning and Sunday morning.

After that, it does appear that the weather pattern across the western US will change, with more storms between about December 22-31. It's too soon to know if this new pattern will deliver a lot of natural snow specifically to Copper, but I'm a big fan of getting out of our current drier weather pattern, and I am hoping for the best later this month!

JOEL GRATZ, Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com