A weak storm that is shearing apart over Colorado brought showers to the central and northern mountains on Tuesday night and Wednesday morning. Radar (which doesn’t work perfectly in Colorado due to the mountains) shows these showers lingering on Wednesday morning.

Temperatures are near the freezing mark at 10,000 feet, so the best accumulations have occurred near and above 10,000 feet, which is roughly around mid-mountain for many ski areas, or just below base level for the higher mountains of Loveland and Abasin.

These showers will end by mid-morning on Wednesday. A few showers could pop back up on Wednesday afternoon, especially near and east of the divide, but accumulations should be light.

We should see dry weather on Thursday, and then our next storm will drift toward Colorado from the south.

This drifting and slow-moving storm will bring showers to the southern mountains from late Thursday night through Saturday, and the showers will shift to the central and northern mountains on Saturday and continue through Sunday.

During the Friday-to-Sunday time frame, all mountains should see at least a dusting/coating of snow, and the heavier showers could drop 3-6+ inches above 10,000 feet. Once again, temperatures with this storm will be warm, so the deepest snow will occur at the highest elevations.

Snowmaking will be possible / likely on Wednesday night, and perhaps now and again through early next week, but we won't see consistent cold temperatures and therefore I doubt we will see a lot of snow being made. Loveland is trying to their to open, and Keystone pushed back their opening day from November 4 to November 11. This is a bummer, but don't panic (see below).

The outlook for next week, Monday November 7 through Friday November 11, is for generally dry weather with above-average temperatures. In fact, the warm and dry weather could continue through about the middle of November.

But, good news. The 15-day ensemble forecasts are showing a slight shift in the pattern. This does NOT mean that we are guaranteed to get big storms in 15 days, but it is a sign that things will eventually change for the better.

The European and Canadian model ensembles show similar things. Late next week, both models show a ridge over the Rockies. That means generally warm and dry weather.

However, about a week after that, sometime between November 15-20, both models show that the ridge will push further west, hopefully allowing storms to move over the ridge and down into Colorado.

The 45-day forecast by the European model also shows a pattern shift during the second half of November. Good news.

To recap a point I’ve made during the last few posts…

From a historical standpoint, I looked back at the past 37 years of snow data at a station in central Colorado to see what happened when we started a season with little to no snow.

What I found was, during seasons when we had no or very little snow on the ground on November 10th (like we’ll have this year), there was no correlation between that low snowpack in November and the snowpack by late December.

Out of 11 seasons that had little to no snow on the ground on November 10th, by the time December 31st came around, 4 of those seasons had above average snowpack, 3 of those seasons had average snowpack, and 4 of those seasons had below average snowpack. Essentially, the odds of above average, average, or below average are about 1/3rd, 1/3rd, and 1/3rd.

Thus, it’s not time to panic just yet. All we need is a pattern shift and consistent storminess for about 2 weeks, and we’ll have a lot of ski terrain open very quickly.

I’ll leave you with this … five years ago in 2011, we were skiing deep powder at Wolf Creek. Ah, that was awesome!

If you want to see a lot of snow in the forecast, check out…

Whistler, British Columbia, Canada: https://opensnow.com/location/cawhistler

Lake Louise, Alberta, Canada: https://opensnow.com/location/calouise

Asahidake, Hokkaido, Japan: https://opensnow.com/location/jpasahidake

Again, do your snow dance and don’t panic … powder days will be here soon!

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

I used to have a Facebook page called “Colorado Powder Forecast”. Back in the good ol’ days, yeah? I decided the bring it back and updated the name to “Colorado Daily Snow”. Maybe this will make it snow again:-) Follow at https://www.facebook.com/coloradodailysnow or search Facebook for “Colorado Daily Snow”. Also, you can follow me personally on Twitter @gratzo and on Instagram @gratzo.

Also, yay for Game 7 of the World Series, and Go Cubs (I’m a bandwagon fan after being in Chicago last weekend)!