Thursday was another warm and mostly sunny day, though we did have a few high clouds as some high-level moisture pushed over Colorado. The water vapor satellite image on Friday morning shows this moisture as gray colors, and clouds show up as blue and green colors.

These are high-level, thin clouds, so they will not produce any precipitation. But they can filter the sunshine as you can see from this webcam image that I saved from Thursday evening at Abasin.

We’ve had a remarkable run of increasing snowpack since mid-November, but the warm temperatures during the past two weeks have started a melting trend across the state (thick blue line).

And this warm and mostly sunny weather will continue through next Wednesday as a ridge stays over Colorado.

There may be a few more clouds on Sunday into Monday, and again on Wednesday, but most of the state should stay dry with warm, spring skiing conditions.

All of the action will occur in the extended forecast, and at this point, it does look like there will be plenty of action to talk about!

Clouds should increase on Wednesday, and snow should arrive on Thursday and continue through Friday morning. It’s still a bit early to talk about specific snow accumulations, but 4-12 inches seems reasonable as a range at all mountains, and this should be enough to create softer turns on Thursday and also on Friday morning.

In the wake of that storm, next Friday afternoon through Saturday evening should be dry.

Then the next storm will likely arrive sometime around Sunday, March 26th. I don’t know whether this storm will hit on Saturday night or Sunday morning, or if it’ll wait until later Sunday into Monday.

That storm should bring snow from March 26-28, and then all longer-range models show that one or two storms will move close to or over Colorado later that week, between March 29-31.

We should see at least three storms during the final 8-ish days of March, so there will be more powder to enjoy, but we’ll have to remember that there will be some melted-out areas underneath the new snow, especially on lower, south-facing slopes.

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

Geography Key

Northern Mountains
Steamboat, Granby, Beaver Creek, Vail, Ski Cooper, Copper, Breckenridge, Keystone, Loveland, Abasin, Winter Park, Berthoud Pass, Eldora, Rocky Mountain National Park, Cameron Pass

Along the Divide
Loveland, Abasin, 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