I do not see anything in the data that makes me want to significantly change the forecast.

Snow showers have already begun on Sunday morning for the southern mountains and around Powderhorn in the western part of the state. These snow showers will slowly move east through the day. While we should see at least a few inches of powder through the day in the southern mountains and around Powderhorn, the most intense snow for all other mountains will mostly wait to start until later on Sunday afternoon, and that means that the best powder will be on Monday morning.

Most models are predicting average snow totals in the 4-8 inch range, with 8-12 inches for areas favored by northwest flow, including Telluride, Silverton, possibly Powderhorn, and then in the northern mountains from Vail east, including Vail, Breckenridge, Loveland, Winter Park, and north to Rocky Mountain National Park and Cameron Pass.

Below is the snow forecast from Saturday night at midnight through Monday at noon. This forecast hasn’t changed much since yesterday.

In the past five years, I have seen this storm’s combination of track, wind direction, moisture, and temperature result in deeper-than-expected fluffy snow totals on the back side of the storm (in this case, on Monday morning). While I think that the average model forecast for 4-8 inches with favored areas getting 8-12 inches is reasonable, keep your eye on the snow stake cameras across the northern mountains to see if one area gets a bit more snow.

Also, in terms of snow quality, this storm is setting up perfectly. The showers on Sunday will be thicker and denser, and then the temperature of 10-15F at mountaintop elevation on Sunday night should help the atmosphere to produce fluffy dendrite flakes, resulting in light, blower powder on Monday morning.

Try to stop watching the radar and snow stake cameras and get a few hours of sleep on Sunday night … at least that’s what I am telling myself:-) I plan to ski early Monday morning, so my write-up on Monday AM will likely be brief. You can check all of the snow stake cameras and snow reports here on OpenSnow, so please peruse the website and/or mobile app!

Also, in the northern mountains, there will likely be a couple of inches of snow that accumulates after the Monday 500 am morning report, so keep your eye on the snow stake cameras to see if this is happening rather than make your decision purely based on the number on the 500 am snow report.

Snow showers will wind down on Monday afternoon, and while the northern mountains might see light additional accumulations on Monday night and Tuesday, they likely will not be significant.

The longer-range forecast is promising, with general storminess across the western US forecasted to start on Thursday and continue through early the following week.

The impact of this storminess here in Colorado will likely be felt in waves of snowfall, with the first wave from later Thursday through Saturday, and another wave from Sunday-ish through the following Monday or Tuesday.

The first wave on Thursday and Friday will likely be warmer with a wind from the west-southwest or southwest, and this would favor the southern mountains.

The second wave later next weekend into the following week should be colder, but I do not have any confidence in the track of this system and therefore do not know which mountains will be favored.

Some models show that we will see a break in the stormy weather during the last day or two of March and into early April, but other models show storms hanging around the Rockies. We’ll figure out that forecast when the time is a bit closer.

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, 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