While the weather for the rest of the week will be dry, we are tracking a storm for the weekend, and this storm is already showing up on the water vapor satellite image as of Wednesday morning. Notice the swirl in the upper-left (it’s hard to miss!).

It’ll still be another few days before this storm hits Colorado. In the meantime, high temperatures on Wednesday will be in the 20s, then we’ll see warmer temperatures, into the 30s, on Thursday and Friday. Also, expect more clouds on Thursday and Friday as moisture pushes into Colorado ahead of the weekend system.

Snow should begin in the far southern and western mountains late on Friday night, and then slowly spread across Colorado on Saturday and Saturday night.

The most intense snow should fall on Saturday night through Sunday, which is which I think the best powder day at most mountains will be on Sunday.

What about snow amounts? Let’s look at the University of Utah ensemble snow forecast, which shows a range of possible outcomes.

Berthoud Pass in the northern mountains. The range is 4-15 inches with an average of 8 inches.

McClure Pass in the west-central mountains. The range is 6-14 inches with an average of 9 inches.

Red Mountain Pass in the northern part of the southern mountains. The range is 9-17 inches with an average of 13 inches.

Below is another way to view the University of Utah ensemble forecast. On the left is the chance for greater than 6 inches, and on the right is the chance for greater than 12 inches.

Notice that the chance for 6+ inches is very high for all mountains, while the chance for 12+ inches is highest in the mountains that are further west.

I tried to capture this variability in my detailed snow forecast, which you can find on each mountain’s page on our website and app, and you can also compare all forecasts for mountains in Colorado here: https://opensnow.com/state/co

Once again, Sunday will likely be the best powder day. And since show should continue to accumulate through the day on Sunday in the northern and central mountains, remember that there will likely be more snow than what you see on Sunday morning's snow report.

Following the weekend storm, it appears that we’ll see a few weaker systems next week with snow possible on about three of the five weekdays. I really don’t know which days and which mountains will have the best snow, though, so stay tuned. While any one of these days may not bring deep snow accumulations, light-to-moderate accumulations over many days can lead to surprisingly fun powder.

We will likely see a break in the snow between about January 27-29 (the following weekend), and then it’s likely that another storm will arrive right around the end of January.

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, Arapahoe Basin, 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