On Monday morning, the water vapor satellite image clearly shows the storm swirling over the four corners (the meeting point of Colorado, Utah, Arizona, and New Mexico).

The national radar animation on Monday morning indicates that the storm is tapping a lot of southern moisture with lots of rain over eastern Colorado and the plains of the United States. Over the mountains of Colorado, you can see waves of showers moving from south to north as the storm spins counter clockwise.

These waves of showers delivered mountain snow on Sunday and Sunday night with the deepest accumulations over about 10,000 feet and some snow down to 8,000 feet in spots.

Let’s take a cam tour across the state from north to south.

Berthoud Pass has a coating to an inch of snow (as does nearby Winter Park).

Both Loveland and Arapahoe Basin’s snow stake cameras show about 3 inches.

Vail’s summit snow stake camera reads about 4-5 inches, and the back bowls received a nice coat of paint on Sunday evening.

Just about 18 miles south of Vail is Ski Cooper, where, like Vail, they picked up about 4 inches.

As I mentioned yesterday, a lot of the snow in the central and northern mountains could come in waves, and there would be a few intense showers that would drop more in some spots.

One line of intense showers happened to move south-to-north directly over Ski Cooper and Vail, which resulted in the 3-4 inch totals.

However, this intense line of showers was narrow, and just a few miles to the east and west of Vail received less snow.

Beaver Creek is about 8 miles west of Vail and just received a coating.

And Copper Mountain is about 12 miles east-southeast of Vail and also received a bit less snow, maybe an inch or so.

The models are pretty good at forecasting the likelihood of these narrow lines of intense snowfall.

But the models cannot (most of the time) reliably forecast the exact location of these lines of intense snowfall. So we watch the satellite, radar, and snow stake cams to see where these lines are setting up and where they’re going.

Moving on, close to Powderhorn ski area is the summit of the Grand Mesa, which looks like full-on winter. The automated SNOTEL station near here shows about 8-10 inches of snow on the ground.

And finally, the southern mountains have seen the most snow so far.

Backcountry SNOTEL stations show 10-13 inches on the ground at around 11,000 feet.

Telluride is looking snowy, with about 7 total inches on the snow stake camera on Sunday and Sunday night (the stake clears in the afternoon, hence why it’s only showing 4 inches).

Close to Telluride is Silverton. They do not have a snow stake camera, but nearby weather stations indicate perhaps one foot of snow up high.

And over to Wolf Creek Pass, the closest SNOTEL site shows about 6 inches and their base area looks snowy.

Looking ahead for the rest of the week:

Monday will bring continued snow showers with some breaks as well.

Tuesday might be a bit drier, though a couple showers will still roam around.

Wednesday and Thursday will likely offer another round of snow with the most in the central and northern mountains. Another couple of inches are likely.

Friday I’m not sure about. Another wave of snow? A break?

Saturday and Sunday is the final push of cold air and precipitation. It may focus mainly on the eastern mountains and eastern plains.

All models agree that we’ll see drier or completely dry weather next week, and temperatures will begin a warming trend. So most of the current snow will melt out except for high-elevation shaded areas.

Also, there is a wrinkle in the forecast for next week. Some models indicate that a weak system may stall to the southwest of Colorado, and these systems are often poorly forecast by the models and can sometimes sneak up to bring precipitation and clouds to at least southern Colorado, so we’ll have to watch for that.

Thanks for reading … next update on Tuesday, October 9.

JOEL GRATZ

PS - I updated info for a few of my upcoming talks. See below and hope to see you in person soon!

My upcoming presentations about the winter forecast and tips for chasing pow!

* October 18 in Colorado Springs at Ute & Yeti starting at 630pm. Beer & food available for purchase. Free to attend! RSVP here.

 

* October 25 in Golden at Powder7 ski shop starting at 630pm. Free to attend! RSVP page coming soon.

 

* November 1 in Boulder at Neptune Mountaineering starting at 600pm. Free to attend! There will be happy hour, my talk, the short film “Abandoned” about lost ski areas, and a raffle with REALLY good prizes. Details here.

 

* Early November in Summit County

* November 28 in Vail

* December 5 in Denver

 

OpenSummit

We have an iPhone app that provides detailed weather forecasts for your hiking, biking, and climbing adventures. OpenSummit now includes forecasts for 1,000 of the highest and/or notable summits and hiking areas across the United States. Download OpenSummit (iPhone only)

 

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