As we head into Sunday, the latest forecast models are now in agreement that the storm will take a track far to the southwest and south of Colorado. A shout-out to the European model which correctly forecast this track many days ago while the American GFS (and other models) wavered and brought the storm more directly over Colorado.

With the southern storm track being farther south than we expected yesterday, forecast snow totals have dramatically decreased.

Yesterday, the snow forecast for Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon looked like this.

Today, the snow forecast for Sunday afternoon to Monday afternoon looks like this.

Even with this far southern storm track, it's still possible that snowfall from later Sunday through later Monday could amount to a few inches of fluffy accumulation in the southern mountains and along and just east of the spine of the eastern mountains. However, I am not holding my breath for significant powder on Monday.

Behind the Sunday/Monday storm, we will see cold temperatures, clouds, and snow showers on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The airmass will be relatively dry due to the cold temperatures, and this means that snow showers streaming into Colorado with northwest flow likely will result in just light accumulation across the northern and central mountains. Even a light amount of fluffy snow is a good thing as it'll keep conditions soft-ish, but deep powder days are unlikely in this pattern.

Looking ahead to next week and into early February, most of the longer-range models are now hinting that the pattern will shift to bring more moisture into the southwest and potentially into Colorado, and this may lead to a higher chance for significant snowfall at some point during the January 28 to February 1 period.

Even with some agreement amongst the models for the weather pattern in late January into early February, it's still too early to make the call if we will wind up seeing significant snow. But this season, the atmosphere seems to prefer delivering snow to the western US and the Rockies, so I am not betting against us seeing fun (snowy) weather to close out the month of January.

Thanks for reading!

Joel Gratz

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