Wednesday and Thursday

We’ll see dry weather with comfortable temperatures in the 30s on both days. There will be times that high clouds filter the sunshine, but that’ll be about the only weather issue we’ll see.

Friday and Saturday

The forecast for these days is about as variable as you will see two days before a potential storm.

The European model (often the most accurate) and the German ICON model shows just a weak system with a few inches of snow for the eastern mountains.

The American GFS model and the British UKMet models (usually second place accuracy to the European model) shows more snow, at least a few inches for all mountains, and over 6 inches for the eastern mountains.

And the local CAIC WRF shows a more moist system with 6+ inches for most mountains.

What’s happening is that the weather pattern is not producing a strong flow over Colorado, so our potential storm could stall or wobble. If it wobbles over Colorado in just the right way, most areas could get a lot of snow. If it wobbles in the wrong way, most areas will not get a lot of snow.

You can see the storm as the blue area to the southeast of Colorado in the image below.

At this point, my advice is to keep expectations very low, check back for Thursday morning’s update, and hopefully, the next 24 hours will help us to understand if there could be legitimate powder on Friday into Saturday or if this will be more of a non-event.

The weekend should be dry, though if Friday’s storm wobbles or stalls over Colorado, there could be fresh snow (and snow falling) on Saturday.

Next week’s forecast is about as difficult as the forecast for Friday, meaning we really have no idea about the details. The weather pattern continues to be unfavorable for strong storms to track directly across Colorado as the systems are splitting and weakening as they move from the Pacific Ocean into the United States.

That said, most models show at least two or three of these weakened or split storms coming close to Colorado next week, with the best chance for snow maybe midweek and beyond.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned … I know that non-specific forecasts like this one can be frustrating, but that’s what we have to deal with sometimes when the weather pattern is murky and model guidance is not aligned.

My next update will be on Thursday, January 10, 2019. I will be traveling through early next week and will usually be able to post early each morning, as usual, though now and again a post might be delayed a bit. Thanks for understanding!

JOEL GRATZ

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