Saturday was a gorgeous day with high temperatures in the 30s and mostly sunny skies that became covered by high-elevation cirrus clouds later in the day over the northern mountains. The visible satellite image on Saturday afternoon picked up these cirrus clouds over the northern half of the state.

While lower elevations currently have no snow cover, the upper-elevation snowpack ranges from 40-80% of average. To get my mind out of a no-snow funk, I skinned and skied on Saturday, and being on snow, even a thin snowpack, was fun and made me dream of future powder days and a deep snowpack.

Now on Sunday morning, the national radar shows nothing over most of the country with the only action in the Northwest, Northeast, and Southeast.

From Sunday, November 28 through Saturday, December 4, each day will bring dry weather, partly-to-mostly sunny skies, daytime high temperatures in the 30s to low 40s, and nighttime lows dropping into the 20s, which will be cold enough for some snowmaking. During these seven days, high pressure will be locked in for the Rockies and most of the West Coast.

Our glimmer of hope could arrive sometime during the December 5-7 time frame. While all versions of all models keep us dry through December 4, many model versions show a chance for snow between December 5-7, with a weaker storm possible around the 5th and a stronger storm possible around the 7th.

Above, about 40% of the 51 versions of the European model show a reasonable storm around the 7th, and the numbers are similar for the American GEFS and the Canadian GEPS models as well. A 40-ish percent chance for a storm 10 days from now is not exactly the odds that we're looking for, but they are better odds for snow than we saw from yesterday's forecasts, so that's our glimmer of hope.

Below, our 10-day multi-model snow forecast chart for Colorado shows some snow returning to the forecast between December 5-7. Let's hope that the forecast holds!

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

PS – Scientists need your help to collect precipitation observations during winter. Join the community, and during winter storms, share what type of precipitation is falling from the sky. To sign up, text COrainsnow to 855-909-0798. You’ll receive 3 intro texts over the first 3 days, including the first one sharing the web app so you can send your observations. This is a NASA-funded project led by Lynker, the Desert Research Institute, and the University of Nevada, Reno.

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