It’s Friday and it is the storm day!

Dry weather early on Friday morning will give way to bands of intense snow which will start around mid-to-late morning and continue through Friday early evening. These bands of snow could drop 1-3 inches per hour as they move over the mountain, and winds will also kick up with gusts between 40-60mph.

The best time to enjoy the new snow should be Friday midday through the afternoon. The strong wind gusts during this time will be helpful as they will blow the snow in and buff out any harder base snow, but these winds will also be detrimental as they may close or delay some upper-elevation and exposed lifts.

A little bit of snow may accumulate after lifts close on Friday afternoon. This, in combination with the potential for some lifts to close preventing the snow from being skied on Friday afternoon, could make Saturday morning’s first turns really fun.

I’ll stick with my forecast for a 4-8 inch storm total and will be bummed if we get unlucky, miss a few of the stronger bands of snow, and come in at the lower end of this range.

Looking ahead to the holiday weekend, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday will be dry with temperatures in the 20s to low 30s.

Our next chance for snow continues to center around Wednesday and Thursday, January 22-23rd. This looks like a weak-to-moderate strength storm with middle-of-the-road snow totals (not too low, not too high).

Thanks for reading and check back each morning for daily updates!

JOEL GRATZ
Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com
Contact me: [email protected]

Snow conditions as of Friday morning

New snow mid-mountain:
* 0” (24 hours Thursday 500am to Friday 500am)
* 0” (Overnight Thursday 400pm to Friday 500am)

Last snowfall:
* 6-7” from Saturday to Monday (Jan 11-13)

Terrain
* 23 of 23 lifts
* 142 of 149 trails
* Latest update

Snowpack compared to the 30-year average:
* 106%