Thursday will offer partly to mostly cloudy skies and warm temperatures, likely reaching into the 40s. We might see a few showers during the day, but I think most of the time will be dry.

The next storm will then bring precipitation from Thursday evening through Friday night. The first half of the storm, on Thursday night and Friday morning, will be very warm. Rain will be possible near and below mid-mountain, though during times of more intense precipitation, snowflakes may fall down toward the base. Then slightly cooler air will arrive on Friday afternoon with additional cooling on Friday night, and snow should continue during this time.

My snow forecast for the upper part of the mountain is 4-8 inches from Thursday evening through Friday night. The positive factor about this storm is the high amount of moisture, which can lead to deep snow totals. The negative factors about this storm will be the warm temperatures and a wind from the southwest, west-southwest, and west, and only a west wind is ideal for big snow totals at Steamboat.

If you are skiing on Friday, expect a stormy day with some thicker, denser powder during the late morning and midday at the upper part of the mountain, then on Saturday morning, there should be clearer skies and perhaps a few inches fresh powder that fell on Friday evening.

After this storm, the weekend will likely be dry, then a slow-moving storm should hang near or south of Colorado during most of next week, and we could see snow showers during any of the days, most likely earlier in the week.

Thanks for reading and stay tuned for an update each morning!

JOEL GRATZ, Meteorologist at OpenSnow.com