Saturday morning's radar shows snow to the north, northwest, and west of Colorado, heading in our direction.

As I talked about yesterday, this approaching storm is going to split, which means that most mountains will likely see no snow or just a few flakes, with perhaps a dusting to an inch in the northern mountains east of the divide and perhaps in the very southern mountains.

The snow forecast for Saturday and Sunday shows how the storm's snowfall will mostly stay to the north, northwest, west, and south of Colorado.

At least the weather pattern has changed a bit and all of the action is not on the east coast. Still, it's a bummer that we are not going to get snow from this storm.

Next week will start dry on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday. The only exception is that we might see some clouds and flurries or light snow showers in the far northern mountains.

Then the next chance for snow will be on Thursday, December 21st. Here is the snow forecast for all of next week, with the snow in Colorado mostly falling on Thursday.

I hesitated to even post a snowfall map for Thursday's storm because the trend in the models is to split this storm as well, which means that the eventual snowfall will likely look quite different than the map above.

If the storm does split, the main piece may track too far west and south to bring much snow to Colorado. I hope that doesn't happen, but it's a distinct possibility. Splitting storms aren't always a bad thing, but to get a lot of snow, we need some luck so that the split-off piece of the storm happens to track over or near Colorado. 

Beyond next Thursday, there is a chance that a few factors could come together to bring more snow between December 22-25. Perhaps the southern portion of the split system will stall near Colorado and push moisture into the state. Perhaps a system will slide into Colorado from the north. Perhaps both of these situations will happen at the same time and will bring a lot of snow, and slightly more likely is that both of these situations will happen but not align exactly right and we'll see perhaps a bit of snow but not a lot.

I wish I had better news about fresh snow going into the busier holiday period.

To recap, there is a chance for more snow on Thursday through Christmas, and yes, there is more terrain open thanks to snowmaking crews and limited natural snowfall (see the comments from yesterday's post for on-the-ground reports from a few ski areas, and please add any other information to today's comments: http://opensnow.com/dailysnow/colorado/post/9378?comments=true#disqus_thread).

But, I do not see any significant (12+ inch) storms anytime soon. The longer-range models do show the pattern becoming stormier in early January, which actually seems reasonable because that would be about two weeks after the models first showed a more active pattern, and often the pattern takes longer to change than the models believe.

My best case scenario is that we can get a bit lucky with snow through the end of December, maintain and open a bit more terrain, and then we see a return of more plentiful natural snow in early to mid-January.

Thanks for reading!

JOEL GRATZ

10-Year Anniversary Party!
Monday, December 18th at West Flanders in Boulder, CO at 700pm

* I wrote my first snow forecast email titled "Colorado Powder Forecast" on December 18, 2007.
* Ten years (and lots of powder days) later, let's party.
* I will give a short talk to start the night off.
* Wear your Colorado Powder Forecast t-shirt and I'll buy your drinks:-)
* Happy hour prices all night
* Details and RSVP: https://www.facebook.com/events/836050909911243/

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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