Colorado Daily Snow

Short Term Forecast

We have seen waves of snow between Saturday night and now on Monday morning, with the deepest accumulation at Powderhorn where their storm total sits at about 10 inches.

Below are the snow totals between Saturday night and Monday morning. The first number is the total, the second number is the snowfall from Saturday night to Sunday morning, and the third number is the snowfall from Sunday morning through Monday morning.

Northern Mountains

6” (3+3) Vail Blue Sky Basin
5” (2+3) Cameron Pass
5” (2+3) Keystone
5” (2+3) Loveland
5” (3+2) Vail Mid-Mountain
4” (2+2) Breckenridge
4” (2+2) Copper
4” (2+2) Steamboat
4” (2+2) Winter Park
3” (1+2) A-Basin
3” (2+1) Beaver Creek
2” (1+1) Cooper
2” (1+1) Eldora

Central Mountains

10” (2+8) Powderhorn
8” (3+5) Snowmass
7” (3+4) Aspen Mountain
6” (2+4) Aspen Highlands
6” (1+5) Buttermilk
6” (5+1) Crested Butte
6” (5+1) Irwin
2” (1+1) Monarch

Southern Mountains

6” (0+6) Red Mountain Pass
6” (0+6) Telluride
4” (0+4) Purgatory

The higher snow totals in the central mountains largely resulted from a few hours of 'lucky' intense snowfall on Sunday morning when a thin line of snow showers happened to track over this region. Looking at all snow totals across the state, the average of about 3-6 inches is in line with our expectations. While this storm only pushes us a little closer to the average snowpack (we are currently at 55% of the average across the state), at least it's something!

Now on Monday morning, the main part of the storm is swirling over the central plains, and it is leaving us with wrap-around snow showers moving through Colorado from north to south.

These north-to-south moving snow showers should deliver additional flakes on Monday, and the highest chances for at least a few inches of additional accumulation will be in the northern and eastern mountains.

Both the OpenSnow high-resolution 3km model and the CAIC high-resolution 2km model show the potential for 1-4 inches of snow for mountains near I-70 and near the divide. If a few additional inches fall on these mountains, the snow quality on Monday could be on the soft side.

Once the storm winds down on Monday, we will be left with dry weather on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday with high temperatures in the 30s. Compared to last week, there might be more terrain available to ride thanks to this recent snowfall and decently favorable snowmaking conditions, but we are still well below average in terms of snowpack, and in general, available terrain is still quite limited.

Extended Forecast

The next storm will arrive on Thursday night and will bring snow to most mountains on Friday and likely into Saturday as well.

Both the European ensemble model (51 versions) and the American GEFS ensemble model (31 versions) show high agreement that we will see a storm with moderate snowfall from late Thursday through Saturday. We can see this agreement as similarly-colored boxes from all model versions (each horizontal row is a model version) during the November 24-25 time frame.

The good news is that most mountains will see snow on Friday and Saturday, and an early estimate for snow totals puts us in the 3-6 or 4-8 inch range with maybe some high-side potential for a few spots.

The bad news is that after this storm on November 24-25, most forecast models show just a low chance for additional snowfall for us here in Colorado during the 5-15 day forecast period, out through about December 5th.

The weather pattern in late November and early December will bring the best chance for storminess to our east and maybe to our south, leaving a lot of the Rockies and west coast in a drier weather pattern.

If all of this comes to fruition, we will have enough snow to slide on through late November and early December, but terrain will generally be limited, and we'll be waiting for one or two significant storms to bring our snowpack closer to average. 

I wish I had better news! Perhaps we'll get lucky and an early-December storm will move closer to us compared to what we currently see in the forecast. We can hope!

Thanks for reading!

Joel Gratz

Upcoming Events

Please join me at one of these community talks. I'll discuss the season ahead and new weather forecasting technology, as well as answer all of your questions as best as I can. I'll also hand out OpenSnow swag:-) Let's get excited for winter to return!

• Thursday, November 30 at 6:30 p.m. at the Denver Athletic Club in downtown Denver. More details soon!
  
  
• Saturday, December 2 at 6:00 p.m. is the CAIC Benefit Bash. I am NOT presenting at this event, I just wanted to promote the event because it's a super fun night that supports the excellent work done by the CAIC. Buy tickets here.
  
  
• Friday, December 8 at 7:00 p.m. at Angry James Brewing in Silverthorne. Organized by and supporting the Keystone Ski Patrol.

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Geography Key

Northern Mountains
Steamboat, 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, Snowmass, 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