Colorado Daily Snow

Summary

Expect snow from Monday midday through Tuesday morning with most mountains getting 3-6 inches and some locations topping 8 inches. Tuesday morning should be fun (and cold). The next system will bring snow to northern Colorado on Wednesday and Thursday with the best powder possibly on Thursday. Then two more systems could brush Colorado, around Saturday, January 26th and Tuesday, January 29th.

Short Term Forecast

Sunday was a dry day with some sunshine, and Monday morning is starting dry as well.

However, snow isn’t far off, as you can see by the radar animation. Intense snow is falling over Utah on Monday morning and the storm is heading this way.

The storm will make a direct strike on Colorado on Monday evening, and the strength of this storm and the direct track over Colorado should bring most mountains moderate snow totals.

On Monday midday and afternoon, we’ll see snow begin with some intense showers. This is the more variable part of the storm when some mountains could see just a few flakes and others could see stronger cells that quickly drop a few inches.

On Monday night into Tuesday morning, snow will continue, though moisture will decrease as very cold air moves in from the north.

Most models have notched up their snow forecast just a bit, from 3-6 to 4-8 inches. This is all still in the ballpark, and like I said, there will be some variability on Monday afternoon due to the location of the stronger cells. The reason that I think we will not see a lot more snow from this storm is the wind direction from the north on Monday night and the limited moisture. However, the storm is strong, and sometimes this strength can trump other negative factors like wind direction.

The HRRR model (high-resolution rapid refresh) shows the following precipitation forecast. Multiply by about 15 to estimate snowfall. For example, 0.4 inches of precipitation X 15 = 6 inches of snow.

There will be some new snow for Monday's last run and the deepest and most fun powder will be on Tuesday morning. Temperatures will be near 0F in spots on Tuesday morning, so dress warmly!

Extended Forecast

The weather pattern for the rest of this week through at least early next week should stay about the same, with a large area of cold air and storminess over the eastern 2/3rds of North American and Colorado will be on the western edge of this stormy pattern.

There is now pretty good agreement among most models that we WILL see storms clip Colorado a few times over the next week.

The best chances for powder, especially over the northern mountains, will be:

* Thursday 1/24. Maybe 3-6 inches, up to 9-12 inches further north, around Steamboat and Cameron Pass.

* Saturday 1/26. Maybe another few inches.

* Tuesday 1/29. Too far out to even guess at snow amounts.

In early February, the trend in the models is to change the pattern (see below), but I don’t know exactly what this means for our weather here in Colorado. There have been a lot of changes from day-to-day in the 10-15 day forecast, even when averaging 20-50 versions of models, so I have virtually no confidence in the forecast beyond about one week in the future.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Tuesday, January 22.

JOEL GRATZ

Announcements

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, Arapahoe Basin, 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