We have been talking about this storm for over one week and I am always nervous waking up on storm mornings to see if the atmosphere delivered the snow that we expected.

Based on mountain cams at 500am on Friday, the storm has delivered and I see the following snow totals.

Southern Mountains: 8-15 inches

Purgatory is reporting 14 inches, Telluride says 8 inches, and Wolf Creek and Silverton are likely into the double digits (haven’t received official reports for these mountains yet).

The snow stake cam at Purgatory tells the story (the official report is taken at a different location and doesn't exactly match the cam below).

Central Mountains: 4-10 inches

Crested Butte has the highest total of 8-10 inches, then the Aspen area should be in the 4-7 inch range and Cooper is reporting 6 inches.

Northern Mountains: 2-14 inches

Steamboat grabbed 14 inches (via the summit snow stake cam) thanks to a line of intense snow that happened to track right over far northern Colorado, while other mountains along I-70 are generally in the 2-4 inch range.

Snow Quality

The snow that fell on Thursday night will likely be rather dense due to warmer temperatures and stronger winds. No matter, a double-digit first chair is a good thing!!

Friday's Forecast

Now around 500am on Friday, the cold front is moving across the state and this will change the wind direction to blow from the northwest. A northwest wind is favorable for the northern mountains, a few central mountains like Aspen Highlands, and also the north side of the southern mountains, like Telluride and Silverton. I expect an additional 2-8+ inches on Friday for these areas favored by northwest winds.

The high-resolution rapid refresh (HRRR) model below gives a typical northwest flow precipitation forecast Friday. Multiply by about 14 to estimate snowfall.

Some snow will continue to fall after lifts close on Friday afternoon in the northern mountains, so keep your eye on mountain snow stake cams (we have them all here on OpenSnow) to see if there will be additional fluffy powder to ski on Saturday morning.

Following Friday’s storm, we’ll get into a weather pattern with cold air over the eastern 2/3rds of the United States and Canada. Colorado will be on the western edge of this storm track.

Following a dry weekend (maybe lingering clouds and showers over the northern mountains at times), we will get lucky and see two storms move along the western side of this weather pattern and these storms will bring snow to Colorado.

The first storm next week will be Monday into Monday evening, with the best powder likely on Monday afternoon (maybe soft snow on Tuesday morning as well?) and 3-6+ inch storm totals.

The second storm next week will be on Thursday into Friday with a few inches likely over the northern mountains.

After that, the storm track will shift just a bit to the east and we will probably see dry weather for the final 7 days of January (maybe light snow over the northern mountains at times), and then we’ll need to wait and see when the weather pattern will change in early February – it’s too early to pinpoint a time as we’re now talking about a forecast that’s 12+ days out.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Saturday, January 19.

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