Colorado Daily Snow
By Joel Gratz, Founding Meteorologist Posted 6 years ago September 18, 2017
Another storm arrives later this week, snow amounts uncertain
Summary
Monday and Tuesday will be mostly dry and sunny. A weak system will clip the extreme northern mountains on Tuesday evening, otherwise, the rest of the state will be dry. Then a slow-moving storm will bring cooler air from Thursday through next Tuesday (Sep 26) and most mountains will see snow from this storm. However, the slow-moving nature of the storm leads to lower-than-average confidence in the forecast, especially when the snow is 4+ days away.
Short Term Forecast
In case you missed it, Saturday morning's webcams showed a nice treat in the northern mountains.
The snow near and above treeline is fun to see, but most of it melted as daytime temperatures rose into the 40s with plenty of sunshine.
Speaking of temperatures, I can't help but get excited when seeing overnight lows dipping to around freezing (32F) near treeline. Here is data from the weather station on Loveland Pass (credit: CAIC).
Storm #2
Following sunny and dry weather on Monday and most of Tuesday, the second storm of the season will just graze the extreme northern mountains on Tuesday evening. All of the precipitation should stay north of I-70, and most likely the precipitation will only hit the mountains near and north of Steamboat and Longs Peak. For those mountains, expect a coating of snow above treeline on Tuesday evening.
Extended Forecast
Following dry weather on Wednesday, the third storm of the season will move toward Colorado on Thursday and it will then affect our weather for the better part of six days. That's a slow-moving system!
In this animation, blue colors show the storm. The length of time in the graphic extends from Thursday, Sep 21 to Thursday, Sep 28. Those blue colors stick with us for most of this period.
Storm #3
When storms move slowly, they tend to wobble around because there is no strong push to keep them moving in a consistent direction. Because of this wobbling, forecast confidence is usually below normal, and this storm is no exception.
All I can say now is that we should see cooler temperatures between Thursday, Sep 21 through Tuesday, Sep 26, there will be multiple rounds of precipitation, and mountains near and above 10,000 feet should receive at least a coating of snow, with some areas potentially getting 6+ inches if they get hit with multiple rounds of precipitation.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you don't love early-season snow), the most snow from this system will fall to our north, over Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming.
End of September, early October
Most models in the 10-15 range show that warmer-than-average temperatures will return to the west coast during the last few days of September and early October.
Here in Colorado, I am less certain that we'll see a big warm up. Instead, temperatures might move closer to average and we could continue to be clipped by storms dropping into the US from the northwest and heading to the midwest.
Thanks for reading and hope to see you at the Denver & Boulder parties next week (details below)!
JOEL GRATZ
Announcements
Join me in Denver and Boulder in late September to have a bite, grab a drink, and talk about cat & heli-skiing. The goal for the night is to share a bunch of knowledge about how to pick a great cat or heli trip in Colorado, British Columbia, or Alaska. See more info and RSVP on our event pages:
Denver, Tue, Sep 26
https://www.facebook.com/events/130993727539813/
Boulder, Thu, Sep 28
https://www.facebook.com/events/2043562782529422/
About Our Forecaster
Joel Gratz
Founding Meteorologist
Joel Gratz is the Founding Meteorologist of OpenSnow and has lived in Boulder, Colorado since 2003. Before moving to Colorado, he spent his childhood as a (not very fast) ski racer in eastern Pennsylvania.
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