Thursday brought mixed weather with times of sunshine and times of snow showers. We were thinking that "a few inches" was a good call, but the atmosphere had other ideas as some of the showers were intense and tracked over the same area during a few hours.

Snow amounts from Thursday mid-afternoon through Thursday late evening look like this: 

11" Winter Park
5" Arapahoe Basin
5" Loveland
4" Snowmass
3" Copper
2" Breckenridge

Snow amounts at non-open mountains showed similar totals, mostly in the 2-5 inch range.

Below is the snow stake cam at A-Basin as of about 600am on Friday morning.

When we are in a 'showery regime' like we were on Thursday and like we will be again on Friday, it's best to keep expectations low (showers can miss a certain mountain) and also keep an eye on the snow stake cams because fortunes can turn in just a few hours if a few intense showers happen to track over a certain mountain (snow amounts can be 2-3 inches per hour from the most intense showers).

Friday will start out showery over the southern mountains and dry for most other mountains. Then between about noon and late evening, more showers will develop and move from the west-northwest to the east-southeast across mostly the northern and central mountains. Just like Thursday, these showers on Friday afternoon could mostly miss mountains and drop little snow, or we might get lucky with at least a few inches of accumulation. The multi-model precipitation forecast shows the tell-tale sign of showers which is the streaky nature of the precipitation with lines from the west-northwest to the east-southeast.

If these showers develop and hit a few mountains, there could be some new snow to enjoy on Friday's last chair or Saturday's first chair.

Saturday and Sunday will be mostly dry and warm with highs in the upper 30s to low 40s on Saturday and highs in the 40s to low 50s on Sunday. Both days will bring some clouds. Also, there should be a few showers on Saturday night, but these showers look light and not nearly as vigorous as the showers on Thursday and today on Friday.

We will see another storm next week with snow starting later on Monday or Monday night and continuing through Tuesday night or Wednesday morning. It looks like most mountains will see at least a few inches, and the top-end amounts could be in the double digits with the best chance for powder either later on Tuesday or on Wednesday morning. The multi-model precipitation forecast brings decent totals to most mountains with the best chance for deeper amounts near and east of the northern divide. Blue colors show 6+ inches of snow and orange colors show about 10+ inches of snow.

We should see dry weather between about Thursday, April 29, and Sunday, May 2. We'll be in between storms and most models agree that these days will be dry and warmer.

Then we could see another storm during the first week of May. During the past day, the longer-range models have become more varied in their forecast for this storm, with some models showing the system missing us to the south and others showing the system missing us to the north. It looks like there will be a storm around the Rockies during the first week of May, but it's far too soon to know if it'll bring us any snowfall. Below is the 51-run average forecast from the European model which shows a signal for the storm early in the week.

Thanks for reading!

JOEL

New Book!

There is a new book called "Hunting Powder: A Skier's Guide to Finding Colorado's Best Snow" and I think it's a great read for you if you are somewhat of a geek about snow and weather forecasting here in Colorado and looking to deepen your knowledge about meteorology and finding deep snow. This book is somewhere between a textbook and a 'what you need to know' guide to forecasting and I am mentioning it here because I reviewed the book and wrote the forward:-) Check out more details and please do consider buying a copy: http://opsw.co/HuntingPowder

Geography Key

Northern Mountains
Steamboat, Bluebird Backcountry, 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