Sunday was a mostly dry and chilly day with upper-elevation high temperatures between 5-15°F.

Sunday night is when the latest storm swirled across Colorado. Cold temperatures and limited moisture kept snow totals to 1-3 inches at most mountains, though locations farther to the west saw more snow with 4 inches in the northwestern mountains of Beaver Creek, Steamboat, and Vail, about 3-6 inches in the Aspen area, and up to 9-12 inches at Powderhorn (which is the mountain that is farthest to the west).

Powderhorn's official report notes 9 inches but their snow stake timelapse cam showed about 12 inches before a few inches of settlement occurred (the snow that fell was super fluffy and this type of snow can settle rapidly when the storm ends).

Monday morning will offer soft snow due to the flakes that fell on Sunday night, and temperatures will once again be chilly with highs generally in the single digits above zero.

Our state-wide snowpack is creeping higher, even closer to record territory. It is unlikely that we will make a record as we'll see a few dry and warm days coming up and the end-of-week storm will likely be a moderate one and not a massive one. But still, for this time of the season, the statewide snowpack has more moisture in it compared to all but three seasons since 1987 (1992-1993, 1996-1997, and 2018-2019). Here is a direct link to the graphic.

Tuesday and Wednesday will be dry and warm with daytime high temperatures around 30 degrees. Following the past few days with cold temperatures, Tuesday and Wednesday will feel like true spring skiing.

From Thursday midday to Saturday morning, the next storm will bring snow to all of Colorado. It is possible that there will be some low-end powder by the end of Thursday for mountains farthest to the west, and it appears that Friday will be the best chance for powder at all mountains due to steady snow on Thursday night and additional snow showers during the day on Friday. We might even see snow showers hang around on Friday night which would make Saturday morning's conditions pretty soft as well.

Total snowfall still looks like it'll be in the 6-12 inch range and the highest totals should favor mountains farther to the west (this has been the trend during the past few months). In previous forecast models, it appeared that we would see a period of northwest winds which would have favored the northern mountains for upside surprises on Friday, but the latest forecast models have backed off of this outcome and instead show mostly winds from the west on Friday which would favor Steamboat, Beaver Creek, the farther west central mountains of the Aspen/Sunlight area, as well as Powderhorn, Irwin, and perhaps Silverton and Telluride.

The weekend of April 1-2 should be mostly dry with maybe snow showers lingering into Saturday morning and maybe a few snow showers beginning by later Sunday night.

Next week will likely be another stormy couple of days. I cannot yet pin down the details, but there could be snow nearly every day of the week, and the best chance for the most snow could be mid-to-late in the week around April 6-7.

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