On Wednesday into Wednesday night, snow showers continued across the northern and central mountains. Once again, Steamboat picked up the most snow with 5 inches at mid-mountain, and other mountains mostly saw a dusting to 2 inches.

Now on Thursday morning, temperatures are cold across all of Colorado with mountain readings between -5°F and +5°F. There are some colder spots, though, including Crested Butte where the temperature on Thursday morning is a chilly -19°F.

During the day on Thursday, clouds and a few snow showers will hang over the northern mountains while other areas should see some sunshine.

Then from Thursday afternoon to Saturday evening, a storm will stall over the northern mountains with multiple rounds of snowfall. All of the latest models now agree that the northern mountains will see the most snow, with the deepest totals close to the Wyoming border. There is still disagreement about how far south the snow will fall, with some models showing most of the snow staying north of I-70, and other models bringing 6+ inches of snow all the way south to the central mountains.

Below is the multi-model average snow forecast. I think this graphic does a good job highlighting the potentially deep snow around Steamboat, a good chance for 6-12 inches near and north of Eldora, and lesser amounts close to and south of I-70.

 

If the storm sags south a bit, more snow will fall near and south of I-70. The wind direction during this storm will mostly be from the west, which favors the Steamboat area, the mountains near and north of Eldora, and also Summit County and the central mountains if the storm energy and moisture allow snow to fall that far south).

The timing of the storm should lead to some snow and potential powder on Friday, with a better chance for deeper powder on Saturday due to the snow that falls on Friday night into Saturday midday/afternoon.

After the storm on Friday into Saturday, we will likely see drier or completely dry weather on Sunday.

Then the next storm will track near Colorado on Monday and Tuesday, January 30-31. This storm will likely split as it approaches Colorado with some energy tracking to the north and some energy tracking to the south.

A splitting storm usually leads to more uncertainty in the forecast, so I'm going to keep the outlook vague for now with snow likely on Monday and Tuesday and maybe the most snow for the southern mountains. We will narrow down the forecast during the next few days.

Following the Monday/Tuesday storm, we will likely see quiet weather for at least a few days. Then the next two chances for storms will be around February 4-5 and around February 8-9. The graphic below shows 31 versions of the American GEFS model (each horizontal line displays the precipitation forecast from one of the 31 versions of the model) and we can see that there's only about a 50/50 chance for significant precipitation during both of these potential future storms. 

For now, we'll focus on the Friday/Saturday and Monday/Tuesday storms, and then we will tackle the details of the early February storms when they are a little closer in time.

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