Resort Updates

Wolf Creek is now open every day. I was on a flight on Thursday morning that I knew would go close to Wolf Creek, so I looked at past flights on that route and determined that my best chance for getting a picture of the ski area would occur if I sat on the right side of the plane. And lucky enough, our flight plan followed that of earlier flights and I grabbed this shot.

Keystone will open today, Friday, November 6th. It looks like reservations are already full for opening day and through the weekend, and my guess is that the maximum capacity of the mountain is very low since there are just a few runs open.

Loveland said that they are close to opening but it will NOT be this weekend. For context, Loveland shared that their latest opening since 1979 (as far back as their records go) was November 10, 2016, and this will be the 7th time over that stretch that an opening day happened in November.

Friday

It'll be warm and dry. Earlier in the week, I was concerned about very strong winds on Friday and Friday night, though the storm has slowed a bit and it now looks like the strongest wind gusts will occur on Saturday night.

Saturday

The storm will ramp up but temperatures will stay warm with a snow level around 10,000-11,000 feet and most of the accumulating snow will be confined to the southern mountains.

Saturday evening & Saturday night

This is when we'll see a period of intense snow as a cold front moves from west-to-east across Colorado. Wind gusts could be very strong, over 50mph, and snowfall rates could be 1-3 inches per hour thanks to the combination of a lot of moisture, the cold front, and some convection (warmer air rising which is what also drives summertime thunderstorms).

Total accumulations by Sunday morning should be 10-20 inches in the southern mountains and 3-8 inches for central and northern mountains. If we get lucky and the cold front slows down a bit and/or stronger cells track over a certain mountain, snow amounts in the central and northern mountains might touch double digits.

Sunday

This will be a lull in the storm. There could still be some snow showers especially in the southern mountains thanks to a favorable wind from the southwest, but I am not expecting significant accumulations. 

Sunday night – Tuesday morning

The second part of the storm will move through. It will track over the southern mountains so this area will be favored for another 10-20 inches of accumulation. Adequate moisture and the jet stream overhead may provide respectable snowfall of 2-6 inches to the central and northern mountains though I have low confidence in this.

Storm Totals

The southern mountains should be in the 20-40 inch range. This has been the forecast from all models for days and it makes physical sense because the wind direction will be favorable (south and southwest) and the duration of snow should be 48-72 hours.

The central and northern mountains should be in the 5-12 inch range. With luck, the numbers could go a little higher, but with an unfavorable wind direction for the majority of the storm, I find it best to err on the conservative side.

Both the European and Canadian models show roughly similar snowfall forecasts with the deepest snow clearly in the southern mountains and lighter amounts over the central and northern areas.

Powder Days

Wolf Creek should have legitimate powder days on Sunday and Monday and maybe even Tuesday morning. The snow quality could be thick on Sunday morning due to warm temperatures and strong winds during Saturday night, but the snow quality should become fluffier on Monday and Tuesday dye ti cooler temperatures and lighter winds.

Keystone's runs should ski softly on Sunday morning thanks to the snow on Saturday night. Remember that you need a reservation to ski Keystone and I believe that reservations for the weekend are sold out (always check with the mountain directly, I am just sharing what I read about the status of reservations mostly to get us used to talking about a reservation system and not because I am the authority about which resorts are accepting reservations and how many are available).

I am happy to say that there will be two additional chances for storms next week.

The first chance for a storm will be around Thursday, November 12th.

And the second chance for a storm will be around Saturday or Sunday, November 14-15th.

Both systems could bring low-to-moderate amounts of snow. Because it's still too early to know the exact storm track, I cannot offer any early thoughts about which mountains might be favored and how much snow might fall.

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

PS - I will be traveling and offline through Tuesday (me leaving Colorado is why it's snowing:-). Sam Collentine will do a great job updating the Colorado Daily Snow in my absence.

PPS - We just released a new All-Access subscription. It's a Group Subscription that's only $10/person/year for four people. It works just like a family plan on Netflix or Spotify, for example. We want to earn your subscription this season! Read more info about the All-Access Group Subscription and sign up.

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