Sunday morning’s water vapor satellite animation shows lots of action. The current storm on Sunday is spinning to our southwest while the next storm on Monday is spinning over the northwest.

The current storm arrived on Saturday evening and snow fell on Saturday night and continues now through Sunday morning. We went into this storm thinking that the southern mountains had the best odds for deeper totals, though incoming dry air could limit accumulations, while the central and northern mountains could see anything from nearly no snow to 10+ inches.

Here are Sunday morning’s snow reports:

6” Aspen Mountain
6” Wolf Creek (estimate based on SNOTEL)
5” Crested Butte
5” Snowmass
4” Purgatory
3” Aspen Highlands
3” Telluride
2” Buttermilk
2” Sunlight

The most intense snow fell over the central mountains of Aspen and Crested Butte with 5-6 inches accumulating in just a few hours on Saturday night. The storm has lots of moisture, so we knew that intense snowfall rates were a possibility, but in terms of why the intense snow fell on Crested Butte and Aspen, all we can do is to chalk it up to luck.

Elsewhere, the southern mountains saw 3-6 inches, and while there could be more snow squalls through the day on Sunday, the chance of these mountains getting to double-digits now seems low. In the northern mountains, most reports are around 1 inch.

For the rest of Sunday expect random accumulations with many mountains seeing light totals and a few getting lucky with 4-8+ inches. I am not going to post any model forecast snow maps because none of them agree and no model has a good handle on this storm. We’ll just hope for the best and watch the snow stake cams throughout the day. About the only thing that I have confidence in the temperature, which is warm and should lead to thicker, surfy snow quality.

Sunday night between about 10 pm to 5 am should be dry for most mountains. We’ll be in between storms.

Monday morning around 5 am to 7 am is when the next storm will start making snow over the northern mountains. We’ll see snow in the northern mountains throughout the day with cooling temperatures, so the snow quality should become deeper and fluffier throughout the day. This storm lacks moisture, but we should be able to get 3-6+ inches out of the atmosphere on Monday. When you wake up on Monday morning, the snow report that you’ll see will show the 24-hour measurement from Sunday morning to Monday morning at 5 am. Then, after the snow report is released, the snow will start to fall and it’ll continue through the day, so Monday's conditions should be deeper and softer than what you see on the report.

Snow should continue on Monday night and Tuesday in the northern mountains. The northwest wind direction is good, and the jet stream overhead is good, but the lack of moisture and cold temperatures are big negative factors. Due to the lack of moisture, I think we’ll see just a few inches of additional snow after midnight on Monday, with the exception maybe being a bit more snow around Steamboat which can still work some magic with the cooler temperatures and lack of moisture.

The steady snow should end on Tuesday night into Wednesday though we may still see some clouds and snow showers over the northern mountains. The latest models show another wave of snow over the northern mountains from Thursday into Friday so we might wind up with flakes most days this week.

It’s likely that we’ll see dry and warmer weather next weekend.

Then I am still watching Monday, March 2nd as the next chance for snow. Forecast models are all over the place when it comes to the details, so I have no idea if this will be a weak storm for us, an intense storm, or something in between.

The generalized outlook for the first week of March is reasonably promising with above-average chances for precipitation and moderate temperatures.

Thanks for reading!

My next update will be on Sunday morning.

JOEL GRATZ

Geography Key

Northern Mountains
Steamboat, Granby, Beaver Creek, Vail, Ski Cooper, Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, Loveland, Arapahoe Basin, 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